C H A P T E R 2 2

Distributed Databases

Solutions to Practice Exercises

22.1 Data transfer on a local-area network (LAN) is much faster than on a wide-area
network (WAN). Thus replication and fragmentation will not increase through-
put and speed-up on a LAN, as much as in a WAN. But even in a LAN, replica-
tion has its uses in increasing reliability and availability.
22.2 a. The types of failure that can occur in a distributed system include
i. Computer failure (site failure).
ii. Disk failure.
iii. Communication failure.
b. The first two failure types can also occur on centralized systems.
22.3 A proof that 2PC guarantees atomic commits/aborts inspite of site and link
failures, follows. The main idea is that after all sites reply with a <ready T>
message, only the co-ordinator of a transaction can make a commit or abort
decision. Any subsequent commit or abort by a site can happen only after it
ascertains the co-ordinator’s decision, either directly from the co-ordinator, or
indirectly from some other site. Let us enumerate the cases for a site aborting,
and then for a site committing.
a. A site can abort a transaction T (by writing an <abort T> log record) only
under the following circumstances:
i. It has not yet written a <ready T> log-record. In this case, the co-
ordinator could not have got, and will not get a <ready T> or <commit
T> message from this site. Therefore only an abort decision can be
made by the co-ordinator.

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ii. It has written the <ready T> log record, but on inquiry it found out
that some other site has an <abort T> log record. In this case it is
correct for it to abort, because that other site would have ascertained
the co-ordinator’s decision (either directly or indirectly) before actu-
ally aborting.
iii. It is itself the co-ordinator. In this case also no site could have com-
mitted, or will commit in the future, because commit decisions can be
made only by the co-ordinator.
b. A site can commit a transaction T (by writing an <commit T> log record)
only under the following circumstances:
i. It has written the <ready T> log record, and on inquiry it found out
that some other site has a <commit T> log record. In this case it is
correct for it to commit, because that other site would have ascertained
the co-ordinator’s decision (either directly or indirectly) before actually
committing.
ii. It is itself the co-ordinator. In this case no other participating site can
abort/ would have aborted, because abort decisions are made only by
the co-ordinator.

22.4 Site A cannot distinguish between the three cases until communication has
resumed with site B. The action which it performs while B is inaccessible must
be correct irrespective of which of these situations has actually occurred, and
must be such that B can re-integrate consistently into the distributed system
once communication is restored.

22.5 We can have a scheme based on sequence numbers similar to the scheme based
on timestamps. We tag each message with a sequence number that is unique
for the (sending site, receiving site) pair. The number is increased by 1 for each
new message sent from the sending site to the receiving site.
The receiving site stores and acknowledges a received message only if it
has received all lower numbered messages also; the message is stored in the
received-messages relation.
The sending site retransmits a message until it has received an ack from the
receiving site containing the sequence number of the transmitted message, or
a higher sequence number. Once the acknowledgment is received, it can delete
the message from its send queue.
The receiving site discards all messages it receives that have a lower se-
quence number than the latest stored message from the sending site. The re-
ceiving site discards from received-messages all but the (number of the) most
recent message from each sending site (message can be discarded only after
being processed locally).
Note that this scheme requires a fixed (and small) overhead at the receiv-
ing site for each sending site, regardless of the number of messages received.
In contrast the timestamp scheme requires extra space for every message. The
timestamp scheme would have lower storage overhead if the number of mes-
 Exercises 101

sages received within the timeout interval is small compared to the number
of sites, whereas the sequence number scheme would have lower overhead
otherwise.

22.6 Consider the balance in an account, replicated at N sites. Let the current bal-
ance be $100 – consistent across all sites. Consider two transactions T1 and T2
each depositing $10 in the account. Thus the balance would be $120 after both
these transactions are executed. Let the transactions execute in sequence: T1
first and then T2 . Let one of the sites, say s, be down when T1 is executed and
transaction t2 reads the balance from site s. One can see that the balance at the
primary site would be $110 at the end.

22.7 In remote backup systems all transactions are performed at the primary site
and the data is replicated at the remote backup site. The remote backup site
is kept synchronized with the updates at the primary site by sending all log
records. Whenever the primary site fails, the remote backup site takes over
processing.
The distributed systems offer greater availability by having multiple copies
of the data at different sites whereas the remote backup systems offer lesser
availability at lower cost and execution overhead.
In a distributed system, transaction code runs at all the sites whereas in a
remote backup system it runs only at the primary site. The distributed sys-
tem transactions follow two-phase commit to have the data in consistent state
whereas a remote backup system does not follow two-phase commit and avoids
related overhead.

22.8 Consider the balance in an account, replicated at N sites. Let the current bal-
ance be $100 – consistent across all sites. Consider two transactions T1 and T2
each depositing $10 in the account. Thus the balance would be $120 after both
these transactions are executed. Let the transactions execute in sequence: T1
first and then T2 . Suppose the copy of the balance at one of the sites, say s, is
not consistent – due to lazy replication strategy – with the primary copy after
transaction T1 is executed and let transaction T2 read this copy of the balance.
One can see that the balance at the primary site would be $110 at the end.

22.9 Let us say a cycle Ti → Tj → · · · → Tm → Ti exists in the graph built by the

controller. The edges in the graph will either be local edges of the from (Tk , Tl )
or distributed edges of the form (Tk , Tl , n). Each local edge (Tk , Tl ) definitely
implies that Tk is waiting for Tl . Since a distributed edge (Tk , Tl , n) is inserted
into the graph only if Tk ’s request has reached Tl and Tl cannot immediately
release the lock, Tk is indeed waiting for Tl . Therefore every edge in the cycle
indeed represents a transaction waiting for another. For a detailed proof that
this imlies a deadlock refer to Stuart et al. [1984].
We now prove the converse implication. As soon as it is discovered that Tk
is waiting for Tl :
a. a local edge (Tk , Tl ) is added if both are on the same site.
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b. The edge (Tk , Tl , n) is added in both the sites, if Tk and Tl are on different
sites.
Therefore, if the algorithm were able to collect all the local wait-for graphs at
the same instant, it would definitely discover a cycle in the constructed graph,
in case there is a circular wait at that instant. If there is a circular wait at the
instant when the algorithm began execution, none of the edges participating in
that cycle can disappear until the algorithm finishes. Therefore, even though
the algorithm cannot collect all the local graphs at the same instant, any cycle
which existed just before it started will anyway be detected.
22.10 a. i. Send the query Πname (employee) to the Boca plant.
ii. Have the Boca location send back the answer.
b. i. Compute average at New York.
ii. Send answer to San Jose.
c. i. Send the query to find the highest salaried employee to Toronto, Ed-
monton, Vancouver, and Montreal.
ii. Compute the queries at those sites.
iii. Return answers to San Jose.
d. i. Send the query to find the lowest salaried employee to New York.
ii. Compute the query at New York.
iii. Send answer to San Jose.
22.11 The result is as follows.

r
s = A B C
1 2 3
5 3 2
22.12 The reasons are:
a. Directory access protocols are simplified protocols that cater to a limited
type of access to data.
b. Directory systems provide a simple mechanism to name objects in a hi-
erarchical fashion which can be used in a distributed directory system to
specify what information is stored in each of the directory servers. The di-
rectory system can be set up to automatically forward queries made at one
site to the other site, without user intervention.