DISTRIBUTED DBMS

ARCHITECTURE
DBMS STANDARDIZATION

• Based on components.
The components of the system are defined together with the
interrelationships between components. A DBMS consists of a number
of components, each of which provides some functionality.

• Based on functions.
The different classes of users are identified and the functions that the
system will perform for each class are defined. The system
specifications within this category typically specify a hierarchical
structure for the user classes.

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DBMS STANDARDIZATION

• Based on data.
The different types of data are identified, and an architectural
framework is specified which defines the functional units that will
realize or use data according to these different views. This approach
(also referred as the datalogical approach) is claimed to be the
preferable choice for standardization activities.

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DBMS STANDARDIZATION
ANSI / SPARC ARCHITECTURE

The ANSI / SPARC architecture is claimed to be based on

the data organization. It recognizes three views of data:
the external view, which is that of the user, who might be a
programmer; the internal view, that of the system or
machine; and the conceptual view, that of the enterprise.

For each of these views, an appropriate schema definition

is required.

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DBMS STANDARDIZATION
ANSI / SPARC ARCHITECTURE

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DBMS STANDARDIZATION
ANSI / SPARC ARCHITECTURE

• At the lowest level of the architecture is the internal view,

which deals with the physical definition and organization of
data.

• At the other extreme is the external view, which is

concerned with how users view the database.

• Between these two ends is the conceptual schema, which is

an abstract definition of the database. It is the „real world”
view of the enterprise being modeled in the database.
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DBMS STANDARDIZATION
ANSI / SPARC ARCHITECTURE

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DBMS STANDARDIZATION
ANSI / SPARC ARCHITECTURE
• The square boxes represent processing functions, whereas the hexagons
are administrative roles.
• The arrows indicate data, command, program, and description flow,
whereas the „I”-shaped bars on them represent interfaces.
• The major component that permits mapping between different data
organizational views is the data dictionary / directory (depicted as a
triangle), which is a meta-database.
• The database administrator is responsible for defining the internal
schema definition.
• The enterprise administrator’s role is to prepare the conceptual schema
definition.
• The application administrator is responsible for preparing the external
schema for applications.
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ARCHITECTURAL MODELS FOR
DISTRIBUTED DBMSs

The systems are characterized with respect to:

(1) the autonomy of the local systems,
(2) their distribution,
(3) their heterogeneity.
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ARCHITECTURAL MODELS FOR
DISTRIBUTED DBMSs - AUTONOMY
Autonomy refers to the distribution of control, no data. It
indicates the degree to which individual DBMSs can
operate independently.

Three alternatives:
– tight integration
– semiautonomous systems
– total isolation

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ARCHITECTURAL MODELS FOR
DISTRIBUTED DBMSs - AUTONOMY
Tight integration.
A single-image of the entire database is available to any user who
wants to share the information, which may reside in multiple databases.
From the users’ perspective, the data is logically centralized in one
database.
Semiautonomous systems.
The DBMSs can operate independently. Each of these DBMSs
determine what parts of their own database they will make accessible to
users of other DBMSs.
Total isolation.
The individual systems are stand-alone DBMSs, which know neither of
the existence of the other DBMSs nor how to communicate with them.
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ARCHITECTURAL MODELS FOR
DISTRIBUTED DBMSs - DISTRIBUTION
Distributions refers to the distributions of data. Of course,
we are considering the physical distribution of data over
multiple sites; the user sees the data as one logical pool.

Two alternatives:
– client / server distribution
– peer-to-peer distribution (full distribution)

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ARCHITECTURAL MODELS FOR
DISTRIBUTED DBMSs - DISTRIBUTION
Client / server distribution.
The client / server distribution concentrates data management duties at
servers while the clients focus on providing the application
environment including the user interface. The communication duties
are shared between the client machines and servers. Client / server
DBMSs represent the first attempt at distributing functionality.

Peer-to-peer distribution.
There is no distinction of client machines versus servers. Each
machine has full DBMS functionality and can communicate with other
machines to execute queries and transactions.

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ARCHITECTURAL MODELS FOR
DISTRIBUTED DBMSs - HETEROGENEITY
Heterogeneity may occur in various forms in distributed
systems, ranging form hardware heterogeneity and
differences in networking protocols to variations in data
managers.
Representing data with different modeling tools creates
heterogeneity because of the inherent expressive powers and
limitations of individual data models. Heterogeneity in
query languages not only involves the use of completely
different data access paradigms in different data models,
but also covers differences in languages even when the
individual systems use the same data model.
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ARCHITECTURAL MODELS FOR
DISTRIBUTED DBMSs - ALTERNATIVES
The dimensions are identified as: A (autonomy), D
(distribution) and H (heterogeneity).
The alternatives along each dimension are identified by
numbers as: 0, 1 or 2.

A0 - tight integration D0 - no distribution

A1 - semiautonomous systems D1 - client / server systems
A2 - total isolation D2 - peer-to-peer systems

H0 - homogeneous systems
H1 - heterogeneous systems
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ARCHITECTURAL MODELS FOR
DISTRIBUTED DBMSs - ALTERNATIVES
(A0, D0, H0)
If there is no distribution or heterogeneity, the system is a set of
multiple DBMSs that are logically integrated.
(A0, D0, H1)
If heterogeneity is introduced, one has multiple data managers that are
heterogeneous but provide an integrated view to the user.
(A0, D1, H0)
The more interesting case is where the database is distributed even
though an integrated view of the data is provided to users (client /
server distribution).

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ARCHITECTURAL MODELS FOR
DISTRIBUTED DBMSs - ALTERNATIVES
(A0, D2, H0)
The same type of transparency is provided to the user in a fully
distributed environment. There is no distinction among clients and
servers, each site providing identical functionality.
(A1, D0, H0)
These are semiautonomous systems, which are commonly termed
federated DBMS. The component systems in a federated environment
have significant autonomy in their execution, but their participation in
the federation indicate that they are willing to cooperate with other in
executing user requests that access multiple databases.

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ARCHITECTURAL MODELS FOR
DISTRIBUTED DBMSs - ALTERNATIVES
(A1, D0, H1)
These are systems that introduce heterogeneity as well as autonomy, what we
might call a heterogeneous federated DBMS.
(A1, D1, H1)
System of this type introduce distribution by pacing component systems on
different machines. They may be referred to as distributed, heterogeneous
federated DBMS.
(A2, D0, H0)
Now we have full autonomy. These are multidatabase systems (MDBS). The
components have no concept of cooperation. Without heterogeneity and
distribution, an MDBS is an interconnected collection of autonomous
databases.

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ARCHITECTURAL MODELS FOR
DISTRIBUTED DBMSs - ALTERNATIVES
(A2, D0, H1)
These case is realistic, maybe even more so than (A1, D0, H1), in that
we always want to built applications which access data from multiple
storage systems with different characteristics.
(A2, D1, H1) and (A2, D2, H1)
These two cases are together, because of the similarity of the problem.
They both represent the case where component databases that make up
the MDBS are distributed over a number of sites - we call this the
distributed MDBS.

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE

• Client / server systems - (Ax, D1, Hy)

• Distributed databases - (A0, D2, H0)

• Multidatabase systems - (A2, Dx, Hy)

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
CLIENT / SERVER SYSTEMS
• This provides two-level architecture which make it easier to
manage the complexity of modern DBMSs and the complexity
of distribution.

• The server does most of the data management work (query

processing and optimization, transaction management, storage
management).

• The client is the application and the user interface

(management the data that is cached to the client, management
the transaction locks).
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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
CLIENT / SERVER SYSTEMS

• This architecture is quite

common in relational
systems where the
communication between
the clients and the
server(s) is at the level
of SQL statements.

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
CLIENT / SERVER SYSTEMS

Multiple client - single server

From a data management perspective, this is not much different from
centralized databases since the database is stored on only one machine
(the server) which also hosts the software to manage it. However, there
are some differences from centralized systems in the way transactions
are executed and caches are managed.

Multiple client - multiple server

In this case, two alternative management strategies are possible: either
each client manages its own connection to the appropriate server or each
client knows of only its “home server” which then communicates with
other servers as required.

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
PEER-TO-PEER DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

• The physical data organization on each machine may be

different.
• Local internal scheme (LIS) - is an individual internal
schema definition at each site.
• Global conceptual schema (GCS) - describes the enterprise
view of the data.
• Local conceptual schema (LCS) - describes the logical
organization of data at each site.
• External schemas (ESs) - support user applications and
user access to the database.
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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
PEER-TO-PEER DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

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 DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
PEER-TO-PEER DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS
In these case, the ANSI/SPARC
model is extended by the addition
of global directory / dictionary
(GD/D) to permits the required
global mappings. The local
mappings are still performed by
local directory / dictionary
(LD/D). The local database
management components are
integrated by means of global
DBMS functions. Local
conceptual schemas are mappings
of global schema onto each site.

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
PEER-TO-PEER DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

The detailed
components of
a distributed
DBMS.

Two major
components:
– user processor
– data processor

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
PEER-TO-PEER DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS
User processor
• user interface handler - is responsible for interpreting user
commands as they come in, and formatting the result data as it is sent to
the user,
• semantic data controller - uses the integrity constraints and
authorizations that are defined as part of the global conceptual schema to
check if the user query can be processed,
• global query optimizer and decomposer - determines an
execution strategy to minimize a cost function, and translates the global
queries in local ones using the global and local conceptual schemas as
well as global directory,
• distributed execution monitor - coordinates the distributed
execution of the user request.
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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
PEER-TO-PEER DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

Data processor
• local query optimizer - is responsible for choosing the best access
path to access any data item,
• local recovery manager - is responsible for making sure that the
local database remains consistent even when failures occur,
• run-time support processor - physically accesses the database
according to the physical commands in the schedule generated by the
query optimizer. This is the interface to the operating system and
contains the database buffer (or cache) manager, which is responsible
for maintaining the main memory buffers and managing the data
accesses.

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
MDBS ARCHITECTURE

Models using a Global Conceptual Schema (GCS)

The GCS is defined by integrating either the external schemas of local
autonomous databases or parts of their local conceptual schemas.
If the heterogeneity exists in the system, then two implementation
alternatives exists unilingual and multilingual.

Models without a Global Conceptual Schema (GCS)

The existence of a global conceptual schema in a multidatabase system
is a controversial issue. There are researchers who even define a
multidatabase management system as one that manages “several
databases without the global schema”.

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
MDBS ARCHITECTURE - models using a GCS

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
MDBS ARCHITECTURE - models using a GCS
• A unilingual multi-DBMS requires the users to utilize possibly
different data models and languages when both a local database and
the global database are accessed.

• Any application that accesses data from multiple databases must do so

by means of an external view that is defined on the global conceptual
schema.

• One application may have a local external schema (LES) defined on

the local conceptual schema as well as a global external schema
(GES) defined on the global conceptual schema.

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
MDBS ARCHITECTURE - models using a GCS
• An alternative is multilingual architecture, where the basic philosophy
is to permit each user to access the global database by means of an
external schema, defined using the language of the user’s local DBMS.

• The multilingual approach obviously makes querying the databases

easier from the user’s perspective. However, it is more complicated
because we must deal with translation of queries at run time.

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
MDBS ARCHITECTURE - models without a GCS

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
MDBS ARCHITECTURE - models without a GCS
• The architecture identifies two layers: the local system layer and the
multidatabase layer on top of it.
• The local system layer consists of a number of DBMSs, which present to
the multidatabase layer the part of their local database they are willing
to share with users of the other databases. This shared data is presented
either as the actual local conceptual schema or as a local external
schema definition.
• The multidatabase layer consist of a number of external views, which
are constructed where each view may be defined on one local conceptual
schema or on multiple conceptual schemas. Thus the responsibility of
providing access to multiple databases is delegated to the mapping
between the external schemas and the local conceptual schemas.

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
MDBS ARCHITECTURE - models without a GCS
The MDBS provides a layer of
software that runs on top of these
individual DBMSs and provides
users with the facilities of
accessing various databases.

Fig. represents a nondistributed

multi-DBMS. If the system is
distributed, we would need to
replicate the multidatabase layer
to each site where there is a local
DBMS that participates in the
system.

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
GLOBAL DIRECTORY ISSUE

• The global directory includes information about the

location of the fragments as well as the makeup of the
fragments.
• The directory is itself a database that contains meta-data
about the actual data stored in the database.

• We have three dimensions:

1.type 2.location 3.replication

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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
GLOBAL DIRECTORY ISSUE
Type
A directory maybe either global to the entire database or local to each
site. In other words, there might be a single directory containing
information about all the data in the database, or a number of
directories, each containing the information stored at one site.

Location
The directory maybe maintained centrally at one site, or in a distributed
fashion by distributing it over a number of sites.

Replication
There maybe a single copy of the directory or multiply copies.
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DISTRIBUTED DBMS ARCHITECTURE
GLOBAL DIRECTORY ISSUE

These three dimensions are orthogonal to one another. The

unrealistic combination have been designed by a question
mark.
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 DISTRIBUTED
DATABASE DESIGN
DISTRIBUTED DATABASE DESIGN
The organization of distributed systems can be investigated along three
orthogonal dimensions:
1. Level of sharing
2. Behavior of access patterns
3. Level of knowledge on access pattern behavior

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DISTRIBUTED DATABASE DESIGN
Level of sharing
– no sharing - each application and its data execute at one site,
– data sharing - all the programs are replicated at all the sites, but data
files are not,
– data plus program sharing - both data and programs may be shared.
Behavior of access patterns
– static - access patterns of user requests do not change over time,
– dynamic - access patterns of user requests change over time.
Level of knowledge on access pattern behavior
– complete information - the access patterns can reasonably be
predicted and do not deviate significantly from the predictions,
– partial information - there are deviations from the predictions.

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ALTERNATIVE DESIGN STRATEGIES

Two major strategies that have been identified for

designing distributed databases are:

• the top-down approach

• the bottom-up approach

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ALTERNATIVE DESIGN STRATEGIES
TOP-DOWN DESIGN PROCESS

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ALTERNATIVE DESIGN STRATEGIES
TOP-DOWN DESIGN PROCESS

• view design - defining the interfaces for end users,

• conceptual design - is the process by which the enterprise is

examined to determine entity types and relationships among these
entities. One can possibly divide this process into to related activity
groups:
– entity analysis - is concerned with determining the entities, their
attributes, and the relationships among these entities,
– functional analysis - is concerned with determining the
fundamental functions with which the modeled enterprise is
involved.

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ALTERNATIVE DESIGN STRATEGIES
TOP-DOWN DESIGN PROCESS
• distributions design - design the local conceptual schemas by
distributing the entities over the sites of the distributed system. The
distribution design activity consists of two steps:
– fragmentation
– allocation

• physical design - is the process, which maps the local conceptual

schemas to the physical storage devices available at the corresponding
sites,

• observation and monitoring - the results is some form of feedback,

which may result in backing up to one of the earlier steps in the design.

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ALTERNATIVE DESIGN STRATEGIES
BOTTOM-UP DESIGN PROCESS
Top-down design is a suitable approach when a database system
is being designed from scratch.

If a number of databases already exist, and the design task

involves integrating them into one database - the bottom-up
approach is suitable for this type of environment. The starting
point of bottom-up design is the individual local conceptual
schemas. The process consists of integrating local schemas into
the global conceptual schema.

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DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
REASONS FOR FRAGMENTATION
• The important issue is the appropriate unit of distribution. For a
number of reasons it is only natural to consider subsets of relations as
distribution units.
• If the applications that have views defined on a given relation reside at
different sites, two alternatives can be followed, with the entire
relation being the unit of distribution. The relation is not replicated and
is stored at only one site, or it is replicated at all or some of the sites
where the applications reside.
• The fragmentation of relations typically results in the parallel
execution of a single query by dividing it into a set of subqueries that
operate on fragments. Thus, fragmentation typically increases the level
of concurrency and therefore the system throughput.

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DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
REASONS FOR FRAGMENTATION
• There are also the disadvantages of fragmentation:
– if the application have conflicting requirements which prevent
decomposition of the relation into mutually exclusive fragments,
those applications whose views are defined on more than one
fragment may suffer performance degradation,
– the second problem is related to semantic data control, specifically
to integrity checking.

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DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
FRAGMENTATION ALTERNATIVES

• The are clearly two alternatives:

– horizontal fragmentation
– vertical fragmentation

• The fragmentation may, of course, be nested. If the

nestings are of different types, one gets hybrid
fragmentation.

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DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
DEGREE OF FRAGMENTATION

• The extent to which the database should be fragmented is

an important decision that affects the performance of query
execution.

• The degree of fragmentation goes from one extreme, that

is, not to fragment at all, to the other extreme, to fragment
to the level of individual tuples (in the case of horizontal
fragmentation) or to the level of individual attributes (in
the case of vertical fragmentation).

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DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
CORRECTNESS RULES OF FRAGMENTATION

Completeness
If a relation instance R is decomposed into fragments R1,R2, ..., Rn, each
data item that can be found in R can also be found in one or more of Ri’s.
This property is also important in fragmentation since it ensures that the
data in a global relation is mapped into fragments without any loss.
Reconstruction
If a relation R is decomposed into fragments R1,R2, ..., Rn, it should be
possible to define a relational operator  such that:
R = Ri,  RiFR
The reconstructability of the relation from its fragments ensures that
constraints defined on the data in the form of dependencies are preserved.

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DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
CORRECTNESS RULES OF FRAGMENTATION

Disjointness
If a relation R is horizontally decomposed into fragments R1,R2, ..., Rn
and data item di is in Rj, it is not in any other fragment Rk (k  j). This
criterion ensures that the horizontal fragments are disjoint. If relation
R is vertically decomposed, its primary key attributes are typically
repeated in all its fragments. Therefore, in case of vertical partitioning,
disjointness is defined only on the nonprimary key attributes of a
relation.

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DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
ALLOCATION ALTERNATIVES
• The reasons for replication are reliability and efficiency of read-only
queries.

• Read-only queries that access the same data items can be executed in
parallel since copies exist on multiple sites.

• The execution of update queries cause trouble since the system has to
ensure that all the copies of the data are updated properly.

• The decisions regarding replication is a trade-off which depends on

the ratio of the read-only queries to the update queries.

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DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
ALLOCATION ALTERNATIVES
• A nonreplicated database (commonly called a partitioned database)
contains fragments that are allocated to sites, and there is only one
copy of any fragment on the network.

• In case of replication, either the database exists in its entirety at each

site (fully replicated database), or fragments are distributed to the sites
in such a way that copies of a fragment may reside in multiple sites
(partially replicated database).

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DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
ALLOCATION ALTERNATIVES

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DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS

• The information needed for distribution design can be

divided into four categories:
– database information,
– application information,
– communication network information,
– computer system information.

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 DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
FRAGMENTATION

• Horizontal fragmentation partitions a relation along its

tuples

• Two versions of horizontal fragmentation

– Primary horizontal fragmentation of relation is performed using

predicates that are defined on that relation

– Derived fragmentation is the partitioning of relation that results

from predicates being defined on another relation

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 DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
FRAGMENTATION

• Vertical fragmentation partitions a relation into a

set of smaller relations so that many of users
aplications will run on only one fragment

• Vertical fragmentation is inherently more

complicated than horizontal partitioning

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 DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
ALLOCATION

• Allocation problem
– there are set of fragments F= { F1, F2, ... , Fn } and
network consisiting of sites S = { S1, S2, ... , Sm } on
wich sets aplications Q= { q1, q2, ... , qq } is running

– The allocation problem involves finding the “optimal”

distribution of F to S

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 DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
ALLOCATION

• One of important issues that need to be discussed

is the definition of optimality
• The optimality can be defined with respects of two
measures [ Dowdy and Foster, 1982 ]
– Minimal cost. The cost consists of the cost of storing
each Fi at the site Sj, the cost of quering Fi at Sj, the cost
of updating Fi, at all sites it is stored, and cost of data
comunication. The allocation problem,then, attempts to
find an alocations scheme that minimizes cost function.

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DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ISSUES
ALLOCATION

– Perfomance. The allocation strategy is designed to

maintain a performance mertic. Two well-known are to
minimize the response time and to maximize the
system throughput at each site

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