Figure out efficient skiplist serialization technique

Some thoughts on skiplist serialization strategy:

1) Skiplist must be mapped to memory.

2) On modification we write to the end of "operation log".

3) Time to time we dump skiplist to the disk and create a new empty operation log.

4) When we open a skiplist file:

1. Map skiplist to the memory

2. Read the latest log and apply it to the in-memory skiplist.

3. Allow operations on it.

The only case when we don't have to write anything to the disk is when we run a distributed system with concurrent reliable writes. In such case, each node can avoid using operation log and in case of crash, retrieve a data from the survived nodes.

While it is good in theory, there's always a case of the whole datacenter power outage which must not result in data loss or data inconsistensies.

Since skiplists could be partitioned very well, it is recommended to support operation log all the time and scale horizontally by adding new machines and spreading the data between them.

Irrelevant to serialization, but might have sense to read: http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/sund...