Chapter 22: Distributed Databases
Database System Concepts, 5th Ed.
Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
Distributed Database System
A distributed database system consists of loosely coupled sites that share
no physical component.
A distributed database system consists of a collection of sites, connected
together via some kind of communication network, in which:
a. Each site is a full database system site in its own right.
Database systems that run on each site are independent of each other
Transactions may access data at one or more sites
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Homogeneous Distributed Databases
In a homogeneous distributed database
All sites have identical software
Are aware of each other and agree to cooperate in processing user
requests.
Appears to user as a single system
In a heterogeneous distributed database
Different sites may use different schemas and software
Difference in schema is a major problem for query processing
Difference in software is a major problem for transaction
processing
Sites may not be aware of each other and may provide only
limited facilities for cooperation in transaction processing
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Data Replication
A relation or fragment of a relation is replicated if it is stored redundantly
in two or more sites.
Full replication of a relation is the case where the relation is stored at all
sites.
Fully redundant databases are those in which every site contains a copy
of the entire database.
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Data Replication (Cont.)
Advantages of Replication
Availability: failure of site containing relation r does not result in
unavailability of r is replicas exist.
Parallelism: queries on r may be processed by several nodes in parallel.
Reduced data transfer: relation r is available locally at each site containing a
replica of r.
Disadvantages of Replication
Increased cost of updates: each replica of relation r must be updated.
Increased complexity of concurrency control: concurrent updates to
distinct replicas may lead to inconsistent data unless special concurrency
control mechanisms are implemented.
One solution: choose one copy as primary copy and apply concurrency
control operations on primary copy
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Data Fragmentation
Division of relation r into fragments r1, r2, , rn which contain sufficient
information to reconstruct relation r.
Horizontal fragmentation: each tuple of r is assigned to one or more
fragments
Vertical fragmentation: the schema for relation r is split into several smaller
schemas
All schemas must contain a common candidate key (or superkey) to
ensure lossless join property.
A special attribute, the tuple-id attribute may be added to each
schema to serve as a candidate key.
Example : relation account with following schema
Account = (account_number, branch_name , balance )
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Horizontal Fragmentation of account Relation
account_number
branch_name
balance
A-305
A-226
A-155
Hillside
Hillside
Hillside
500
336
62
account1 = branch_name=Hillside (account )
account_number
A-177
A-402
A-408
A-639
branch_name
Valleyview
Valleyview
Valleyview
Valleyview
balance
205
10000
1123
750
account2 = branch_name=Valleyview (account )
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Vertical Fragmentation of employee_info Relation
branch_name
customer_name
tuple_id
Lowman
Hillside
Camp
Hillside
Camp
Valleyview
Kahn
Valleyview
Kahn
Hillside
Kahn
Valleyview
Green
Valleyview
deposit1 = branch_name, customer_name, tuple_id (employee_info )
account_number
balance
500
A-305
336
A-226
205
A-177
10000
A-402
62
A-155
1123
A-408
750
A-639
deposit2 = account_number, balance, tuple_id (employee_info )
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tuple_id
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Advantages of Fragmentation
Horizontal:
allows parallel processing on fragments of a relation
allows a relation to be split so that tuples are located where they are
most frequently accessed
Vertical:
allows tuples to be split so that each part of the tuple is stored where
it is most frequently accessed
tuple-id attribute allows efficient joining of vertical fragments
Vertical and horizontal fragmentation can be mixed.
Fragments may be successively fragmented to an arbitrary depth.
Replication and fragmentation can be combined
Relation is partitioned into several fragments: system maintains
several identical replicas of each such fragment.
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Data Transparency
Data transparency: Degree to which system user may remain unaware of
the details of how and where the data items are stored in a distributed
system
Consider transparency issues in relation to:
Fragmentation transparency
Replication transparency
Location transparency
Naming of data items: criteria
1.
Every data item must have a system-wide unique name.
2.
It should be possible to find the location of data items efficiently.
3.
It should be possible to change the location of data items
transparently.
4.
Each site should be able to create new data items autonomously.
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