Fault-recovery information for transactional operations between computer
systems and the outcome of those operations is logged at the originating
point of the units of work, such as source-computer systems, which may
include client computers in a client/server system. By using these
distributed logs of fault-recovery information, a target-computer system,
which may include a server computer, can reconstruct the target-computer
system's previous interaction with various source-computer systems.
Source-computer systems may use a proxy server for logging fault-recovery
information to persistent storage. A target-computer system may digitally
sign the fault-recovery information it sends to a source-computer system
thereby making the fault-recovery information's authenticity verifiable.
Similarly, the target-computer system may encrypt the fault-recovery
information before sending it to the source-computer system to preserve
the privacy of the fault-recovery information.