Scribd
Upload
9 views2 pages

Post Reading

Uploaded by

saraoffivlr
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
9 views2 pages

Post Reading

Uploaded by

saraoffivlr
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Several criteria are normally used to classify DBMSs.

The first is the data


model on which the DBMS is based. The main data model used in many current
commercial DBMSs is the relational data model. The object data model has
been implemented in some commercial systems but has not had widespread use.
Many legacy applications still run on database systems based on
the hierarchical and network data models.
Examples of hierarchical DBMSs include IMS (IBM) and some other sys-tems like
System 2K (SAS Inc.) and TDMS. IMS is still used at governmental and industrial
installations, including hospitals and banks, although many of its users have
converted to relational systems. The network data model was used by many
vendors and the resulting products like IDMS (Cullinet—now Computer
Associates), DMS 1100 (Univac—now Unisys), IMAGE (Hewlett-Packard),
VAX-DBMS (Digital—then Compaq and now HP), and SUPRA (Cincom) still
have a fol-lowing and their user groups have their own active organizations. If we
add IBM’s popular VSAM file system to these, we can easily say that a reasonable
percentage of worldwide-computerized data is still in these so-called legacy
database systems.

The relational DBMSs are evolving continuously, and, in particular, have been
incorporating many of the concepts that were developed in object databases. This
has led to a new class of DBMSs called object-relational DBMSs. We can
categorize DBMSs based on the data model: relational, object, object-relational,
hierarchical, network, and other.

More recently, some experimental DBMSs are based on the XML (eXtended
Markup Language) model, which is a tree-structured (hierarchical) data model.
These have been called native XML DBMSs. Several commercial relational
DBMSs have added XML interfaces and storage to their products.

The second criterion used to classify DBMSs is the number of users supported by
the system. Single-user systems support only one user at a time and are mostly
used with PCs. Multiuser systems, which include the majority of DBMSs, support
con-current multiple users.
The third criterion is the number of sites over which the database is distributed. A
DBMS is centralized if the data is stored at a single computer site. A centralized
DBMS can support multiple users, but the DBMS and the database reside totally at
a single computer site.
A distributed DBMS (DDBMS) can have the actual database and DBMS software
distributed over many sites, connected by a computer
network. Homogeneous DDBMSs use the same DBMS software at all the sites,
whereas heterogeneous DDBMSs can use different DBMS software at each site. It
is also possible to develop middleware software to access several autonomous
preexisting databases stored under heterogeneousDBMSs. This leads to
a federated DBMS (or multidatabase system), in which the participating DBMSs
are loosely coupled and have a degree of local autonomy. Many DDBMSs use
client-server architecture, as we described in Section 2.5.

The fourth criterion is cost. It is difficult to propose a classification of DBMSs


based on cost. Today we have open source (free) DBMS products like MySQL and
PostgreSQL that are supported by third-party vendors with additional services. The
main RDBMS products are available as free examination 30-day copy versions as
well as personal versions, which may cost under $100 and allow a fair amount of
functionality. The giant systems are being sold in modular form with components
to handle distribution, replication, parallel processing, mobile capability, and so on,
and with a large number of parameters that must be defined for the configuration.
Furthermore, they are sold in the form of licenses—site licenses allow unlimited
use of the database system with any number of copies running at the customer site.
Another type of license limits the number of concurrent users or the number of
user seats at a location. Standalone single user versions of some systems like
Microsoft Access are sold per copy or included in the overall configuration of a
desktop or laptop. In addition, data warehousing and mining features, as well as
support for additional data types, are made available at extra cost. It is possible to
pay millions of dollars for the installation and maintenance of large database
systems annually.

You might also like