Exploiting Nil-Externality for Fast Replicated Storage

Do some storage interfaces enable higher performance than others? Can one identify and exploit such interfaces to realize high performance in storage systems? This paper answers these questions in the affirmative by identifying nil-externality, a property of storage interfaces. A nil-externalizing (nilext) interface may modify state within a storage system but does not externalize its effects or system state immediately to the outside world. As a result, a storage system can apply nilext operations lazily, improving performance.