paperdistributed systemsMay 2026
Spanner: Google’s Globally-Distributed Database
James C. Corbett, Jeffrey Dean, Michael Epstein et al. [Google Inc] (2012)
Source: OSDI
Summary
Spanner is Google's globally-distributed, externally-consistent database. It's heavily based on clock synchronization, and solves prominent clock synchronization issue through its novel TrueTime API (GPS + atomic clocks with bounded uncertainty) to assign globally meaningful commit timestamps, enabling (!!!) lock-free consistent reads and distributed transactions, even across datacenters.
"Why is it (Spanner) needed"
(Prepping for interview - will continue soon)