Distributed DBMS Architecture

Introduces the architecture of different distributed

systems such as client/server system and peer-to-peer
distributed system.
Owing to the diversity of distributed systems, it is very
difficult to generalize the architecture of distributed
DBMSs.
Different alternative architectures of the distributed
database systems and the advantages and
disadvantages of each system are discussed in detail
The architecture of a system reflects the structure of
the underlying system.
It defines the different components of the system, the
functions of these components and the overall
interactions and relationships between these
components.
Client/Server System
The client/server system is a versatile, message-based
and modular infrastructure that is intended to improve
usability, flexibility, interoperability and scalability as
compared to centralized, mainframe, time-sharing
computing.
A Client is an individual user’s computer or a user
application that does a certain amount of processing on
its own and sends and receives requests to and from
one or more servers for other processing and/or data.
A Server consists of one or more computers or an
application program that receives and processes
requests from one or more client machines. A server is
typically designed with some redundancies in power,
Advantages of Client/Server System
A client/server system provides a number of
advantages.
The major advantage is that it improves usability,
flexibility, interoperability and scalability as compared
to centralized, time-sharing, mainframe computing.
A client/server system has the ability to distribute the
computing workload between client workstations and
shared servers.
A client/server system allows the end user to use a
microcomputer’s graphical user interfaces, thereby
improving functionality and simplicity.
It provides better performance at a reduced cost for
Disadvantages of Client/Server
System
The client/server architecture creates a more complex environment
in which it is often difficult to manage different platforms (LANs,
operating systems, DBMS etc.).
In a client/server system, the operating system software is
distributed over many machines rather than a single system,
thereby increasing complexity.
A client/server system may suffer from security problems as the
number of users and processing sites increases.
The workstations are geographically distributed in a client/server
system, and each of these workstations is administrated and
controlled by individual departments, which adds extra
complexity. Furthermore, communication cost is incurred with
each processing.
Architecture of Client/Server Distributed
Systems
The Client/Server architecture is based on hardware and software
components that interact to form a distributed system.
In a client/server distributed database system, entire data can be
viewed as a single logical database while at the physical level data
may be distributed.
From the data organizational view, the architecture of a
client/server distributed database system is mainly concentrated on
software components of the system.
It includes three main components:
clients
servers and
communications middleware.
Client/Server Distributed Systems
Architecture
A Client is an individual computer or process or user’s
application that requests services from the server.
A Client is also known as front-end application, as
the end user usually interacts with the client process.
The software components required in the client
machine are the client operating system, client DBMS
and client graphical user interface.
Client process runs on an operating system that has at
least some multi-tasking capabilities
The end users interact with the client process via a
graphical user interface.
In addition, a client DBMS is required at the client
side, which is responsible for managing the data that is
cached in the client.
In some client/server architectures, communication
software is embedded into the client machine, as a
substitute for communication middleware, to interact
efficiently with other machines in the network.
A Server consists of one or more computers or is a
computer process or application that provides services
to clients.
A Server is also known as back-end application, as
the server process provides the background services
for the client processes.
A server provides most of the data management
services such as query processing and optimization,
transaction management, recovery management,
storage management and integrity maintenance
services to the clients.
sometimes communication software is embedded into
the server machine, instead of communication
Communication middleware is any process(es)
through which clients and servers communicate with
each other.
The communication middleware is usually associated
with a network that controls data and information
transmission between clients and servers.
Communication middleware software consists of three
main components: application program interface
(API), database translator and network translator.
The API is public to client applications through which
they can communicate with the communication
middleware.

Architectural Alternatives for Client/Server
Systems
A client/server system can have several architectural
alternatives known as two-tier, three-tier and multi-tier
or n-tier.
Three-tier architecture –. Some networks of
client/server architecture consist of three different
kinds of nodes: clients, application servers, which
process data for the clients, and database servers,
which store data for the application servers.
Peer-to-Peer Distributed System
The peer-to-peer architecture is a good way to
structure a distributed system so that it consists of
many identical software processes or modules, each
module running on a different computer or node.
The different software modules stored at different sites
communicate with each other to complete the
processing required for the execution of distributed
applications.
Peer-to-peer architecture provides both client and
server functionalities on each computer. Therefore,
each node can access services from other nodes as well
as providing services to other nodes.
Reference Architecture of Distributed DBMSs
A set of global external schemas
A global conceptual schema (GCS)
A fragmentation schema and allocation schema
A set of schemas for each local DBMS, conforming to
the ANSI–SPARC three-level architecture.
Global external schema –. In a distributed system,
user applications and user accesses to the distributed
database are represented by a number of global
external schemas. This is the topmost level in the
reference architecture of a distributed DBMS.
Global conceptual schema –. The GCS represents the
logical description of the entire database as if it is not
distributed. This level corresponds to the conceptual
level of the ANSI–SPARC architecture of centralized
DBMS and contains definitions of all entities,
relationships among entities and security and integrity
information for the whole database stored at all sites in
a distributed system.
Fragmentation schema and allocation schema –. In
a distributed database, the data can be split into a
number of non-overlapping portions, called fragments.
There are several different ways to perform this
fragmentation operation. The fragmentation schema
describes how the data is to be logically partitioned in
a distributed database.
Multi-Database System (MDBS)
An MDBS is a software that can be manipulated and
accessed through a single manipulation language with
a single common data model (i.e., through a single
application) in a heterogeneous environment without
interfering with the normal execution of the individual
database systems.
The MDBS has developed from a requirement to
manage and retrieve data from multiple databases
within a single application while providing complete
autonomy to individual database systems.
Taxonomy of Multi-database
Systems
Federated MDBS (FMDBS). It is a collection of
cooperating database management systems that are
autonomous but participate in a federation to allow
partial and controlled sharing of their data.
 In a federated MDBS, all component DBMSs
cooperate to allow different degrees of integration.
There is no centralized control in a federated
architecture because the component databases control
access to their data.
An FMDBS is a cross between a DDBMS and a
centralized DBMS.
It is a distributed system to global users whereas a
centralized DBMS to local users.
In a simple way, an MDBS is said to be an FMDBS, if
users interface to the MDBS through some integrated
views, and there is no connection between any two
integrated views.
The features of an FMDBS
Integrated schema exists –. The FMDBS
administrator (MDBA) is responsible for the creation
of integrated schemas in a heterogeneous environment.

Component databases are transparent to users

–. Users are not aware of the multiple component
DBMSs in an FMDBS; thus, the users only need to
understand the integrated schemas to implement the
operations on an FMDBS. They cannot change the
integrated components when they operate this FMDBS.
A common data model (CDM) is required to
implement the federation –. The CDM must be very
powerful to represent all data models in the different
components. The integration of export schemas of
component data models is placed on the CDM.
Update transactions are a difficult issue in FMDBS
–. The component databases are completely
independent and join the federation through the
integrated schema. It is difficult to decide whether the
FMDBS or the local component database systems will
control the transactions.
Five-Level Schema Architecture of federated MDBS
REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE OF TIGHTLY
COUPLED FEDERATED MDBS
REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE OF LOOSELY
COUPLED FEDERATED MDBS