Serializability, linearizability, and locality

1 · Kyle Kingsbury · Aug. 16, 2016, 2:45 a.m.
In Herlihy and Wing’s seminal paper introducing linearizability, they mention an important advantage of this consistency model: Unlike alternative correctness conditions such as sequential consistency [31] or serializability [40], linearizability is a local property: a system is linearizable if each individual object is linearizable. Locality is important because it allows concurrent systems to be designed and constructed in a modular fashion; linearizable objects can be implemented, verified, ...