Scribd
Upload
91 views

Distributed Database Management System

A distributed database management system (DDBMS) allows for the management of multiple, logically interrelated databases distributed over a computer network. It makes the distribution transparent to users. Key advantages include increased reliability, availability, scalability, and performance. Challenges include greater complexity, security risks, and difficulties maintaining data integrity and consistency across sites.

Uploaded by

Geeti Juneja
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
91 views

Distributed Database Management System

A distributed database management system (DDBMS) allows for the management of multiple, logically interrelated databases distributed over a computer network. It makes the distribution transparent to users. Key advantages include increased reliability, availability, scalability, and performance. Challenges include greater complexity, security risks, and difficulties maintaining data integrity and consistency across sites.

Uploaded by

Geeti Juneja
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 5

Distributed Database Management System (DDBMS)

A collection of multiple, logically interrelated databases distributed over a computer network.A


distributed database management system is as the software system that permits the management of
the distributed database and make the distribution transparent to the users.

Advantages of distributed databases


 Management of distributed data with different levels of transparency.
 Increase reliability and availability.
 Easier expansion.
 Reflects organizational structure — database fragments are located in the departments
they relate to.
 Local autonomy — a department can control the data about them (as they are the ones
familiar with it.)
 Protection of valuable data — if there were ever a catastrophic event such as a fire, all of
the data would not be in one place, but distributed in multiple locations.
 Improved performance — data is located near the site of greatest demand, and the
database systems themselves are parallelized, allowing load on the databases to be
balanced among servers. (A high load on one module of the database won't affect other
modules of the database in a distributed database.)
 Economics — it costs less to create a network of smaller computers with the power of a
single large computer.
 Modularity — systems can be modified, added and removed from the distributed
database without affecting other modules (systems).
 Reliable transactions - Due to replication of database.
 Hardware, Operating System, Network, Fragmentation, DBMS, Replication and Location
Independence.
 Continuous operation...

 Distributed Query processing.


 Distributed Transaction management.

Single site failure does not affect performance of system. All transactions follow A.C.I.D.
property: a-atomicity, the transaction takes place as whole or not at all; c-consistency, maps one
consistent DB state to another; i-isolation, each transaction sees a consistent DB; d-durability,
the results of a transaction must survive system failures. The Merge Replication Method used to
consolidate the data between databases.

[edit] Disadvantages of distributed databases


 Complexity — extra work must be done by the DBAs to ensure that the distributed nature
of the system is transparent. Extra work must also be done to maintain multiple disparate
systems, instead of one big one. Extra database design work must also be done to account
for the disconnected nature of the database — for example, joins become prohibitively
expensive when performed across multiple systems.
 Economics — increased complexity and a more extensive infrastructure means extra
labour costs.
 Security — remote database fragments must be secured, and they are not centralized so
the remote sites must be secured as well. The infrastructure must also be secured (e.g., by
encrypting the network links between remote sites).
 Difficult to maintain integrity — but in a distributed database, enforcing integrity over a
network may require too much of the network's resources to be feasible.,
 Inexperience — distributed databases are difficult to work with, and as a young field
there is not much readily available experience on proper practice.
 Lack of standards — there are no tools or methodologies yet to help users convert a
centralized DBMS into a distributed DBMS.
 Database design more complex — besides of the normal difficulties, the design of a
distributed database has to consider fragmentation of data, allocation of fragments to
specific sites and data replication.
 Additional software is required.
 Operating System should support distributed environment.
 Concurrency control: it is a major issue. It is solved by locking and timestamping.

DISTRIBUTED DATABASE FEATURES AND OBJECTIVES

1.  Local Autonomy

2.  No reliance on a central site

3.  Continuous operation

4.  Location independence

5.  Fragmentation independence

6.  Replication independence

7.  Distributed query

8.  Distributed transaction management (update processing)

9.  Hardware independence

10.  Operating system independence


11.  Network independence

12.  Database independence

1.  Local Autonomy


Local autonomy means that all of the data in the distributed network is owned and managed locally.  For
example, a site in New York would have a remote database that participates in a national distributed
system.  While functioning as a part of the distributed network, the New York database continues to
process local operations independently from the overall distributed system, and the New York database
does not rely on the distributed system to function.  Oracle allows this feature in Net8 by allowing each
database to function independently from other "linked" databases.

2.  No reliance on a central site.

Ideally, all sites are equally "remote", and no one site has governing authority over another node.  Each
site retains it's own Oracle data dictionary and table security.

3.  Continuous operation

Each site is capable of processing independently from the other remote sites, and the addition of a new
site will not effect the overall system.  While each site maintains its own unique identity and control it
functions as a part of a unified federation such that other remote site may access information from the
site in a seamless fashion.  Continuous operations also refers to the ability of each node to be available
to the overall system 24 hours per day, seven days per week.  To accomplish this goal, remote sites may
have a "hot backup" tool such as the Oracle Enterprise Backup Utility (EBU) or the Oracle8 Recovery
Manager (RMAN) to back-up the database while it remains available for update.  Other Oracle
continuous operations tools include Oracle Parallel Server and Oracle snapshots.

4.  Location independence

End-user do not necessarily know, or care, about the physical location of the databases that comprise
the system.  Data is retrieved without any specific reference to the physical sites.  Oracle Net8
accomplishes this by the use of transparent service names that hide the IP address, protocol and remote
database name.

5.  Fragmentation independence

Fragmentation independence refers to the ability of the end-users to store logically related information
at different physical locations.  There are two types of fragmentation independence, vertical partitioning
and horizontal partitioning.  Horizontal partitioning allows for different rows of the same table to be
stored at different remote sites.  This is commonly used by organizations that maintain several branch
offices, each with an identical set of table structures.  Vertical partitioning refers to the ability of a
distributed system to fragment information such that the data columns from the same logical tables are
maintained across the network.  Oracle accomplishes this with Oracle "views" that hide specific columns
and rows in a table.

6.  Replication independence

Replication is the ability of a database to create copies of a master database at remote sites.  These
copies are sometimes called snapshots and may contain the whole database or any sub-component of
the database.  In relational databases, a CUSTOMER table may be snapped to many remote sites for
read-only query.  Subsets of the customer table may be specified, requesting only specific row and
columns, and these replication are refreshed on a periodic basis.  Oracle accomplishes this feature with
Oracle snapshots and replication.

7.  Distributed query processing

Distributed query processing is more than the ability to execute a query against more than one
database.  In Oracle, the query is executed at the node that the user is signed-on to, while other
database's partition a distributed query into sub-queries, executing each sub query on it's host
processor.  In Oracle, a distributed query might query data items from widely distributed databases in a
single query.  Oracle implements distributed queries with database links.

8.  Distributed transaction management (update processing)

Distributed transaction management refers to an Oracle database that can manage an update, insert, or
delete to multiple databases from a single query.  Most database vendors use the two-phase commit to
implement this process, and Oracle implements this feature with the RECO process.  The two-phase
commit insures that all of the remote database have successfully completed their sub-updates before
the entire transaction is COMMITTED to the database. 

9.  Hardware independence

This refers to the ability of a query to query and update information regardless of the hardware platform
on which the data resides.  A single query from a PC might retrieve information from an IBM 3090, a
local database on the PC, and an HP-9000 in a single transaction.  Of course a Net8 implementation does
not care what type of processor is included in the network.

10.  Operating system independence

Again, a query should not be dependent upon an operating system and Oracle  multi-protocol facility
manages this aspect if distribution.

11.  Network independence

Network protocols should not be an issue for distributed databases.  Protocol conversion routines such
as Net8 allow synchronous channels (such as those on IBM mainframes) to communicate with the
asynchronous Unix world.  They also accommodate differences in topology so that LU6.2 can
communicate with TCP/IP, and so on.
12.  Database independence

Database independence refers to the ability to retrieve and update information from many different
database and database architectures.  Oracle has not fully implemented this feature, although there are
gateway products that allow Oracle to communicate with other databases such as IBM's DB2 database
product.

You might also like