the commit protocol by issuing requests 144 to the resources registered for a transaction an example of a distributed processing system according to the present invention is shown generally in fig3 several computer systems are interconnecting using communication networks for example systems 212 and 204 are connected by network 210 systems 204 202 and 206 by network 208 systems 206 216 218 220 and 222 by network 214 and systems 222 226 and 228 by network 224 the networks can be any known local area network lan or wide area network wan including token ring ethernet or other network the u201c network u201d can also be the communication bus between multiple processes in a single computer system a typical computer system for practicing the present invention is shown in fig4 each system 250 contains one or more central processing units 252 volatile memory 254 and input output controller 256 the input output controller 256 manages reading from and writing to magnetic or optical disk storage 262 removable storage 258 260 and to display 268 keyboard 266 and pointing device 264 system communication controller 270 manages communications with a network via communication link 272 this configuration is provided for exemplary purposes only and is not intended to be limiting some commercially available computer systems such as the ibm ps 2 computer and ibm risc system 6000 workstation are.