{{Unreferenced, date=April 2021
The term Group Communication System (GCS) refers to a
software platform
A computing platform, digital platform, or software platform is the infrastructure on which software is executed. While the individual components of a computing platform may be obfuscated under layers of abstraction, the ''summation of the requi ...
that implements some form of
group communication. Examples of group communication systems include
IS-IS
Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS, also written ISIS) is a routing protocol designed to move information efficiently within a computer network, a group of physically connected computers or similar devices. It accomplishes thi ...
,
Spread Toolkit
The Spread Toolkit is a computer software package that provides a high performance group communication system that is resilient to faults across local and wide area networks. Spread functions as a unified message bus for distributed applicatio ...
,
Appia framework,
QuickSilver, and
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
's group services component. Message queue systems are somewhat similar.
Group communication systems commonly provide specific guarantees about the total ordering of messages, such as if the sender of a message receives it back from the GCS, then it is certain that it has been delivered to all other nodes in the system. This property is useful when constructing
data replication
Replication in computing refers to maintaining multiple copies of data, processes, or resources to ensure consistency across redundant components. This fundamental technique spans databases, file systems, and distributed systems, serving to impro ...
systems.
Inter-process communication