Distributed database systems in high-speed wide-area networks

Abstract

In a distributed database system (DDBS), the data are partitioned into smaller databases and distributed over multiple sites in a computer network. Associated with a DDBS are functions like query processing and concurrency control. Traditionally in DDBS research, the computer network has been considered a performance bottleneck, and much research effort has been directed towards the design of database operations that minimize the data transmission cost. With the developments of high-speed networks, the network transmission costs go down and new algorithms that efficiently utilize the huge bandwidth available are required. In this paper, we first identify the issues involved in developing this distributed application in a high-speed environment. Then we demonstrate the inadequacy of existing database protocols in utilizing the gigabit network. And finally, we develop a new concurrency control protocol that performs better than traditional DDBS in a high-speed network. Both analytical and simulation results are presented. In this paper, we have concentrated on the concurrency control (CC) aspect of DDBS since this protocol is at the heart of the overall functioning of the distributed system.