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Chapter 16: Database System Architectures
· Centralized Systems
· Client­Server Systems
· Parallel Systems
· Distributed Systems
· Network Types
Database Systems Concepts 16.1 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Centralized Systems
· Run on a single computer system and do not interact with
other computer systems.
· General-purpose computer system: one to a few CPUs and a
number of device controllers that are connected through a
common bus that provides access to shared memory.
· Single-user system (e.g., personal computer or workstation):
desk-top unit, single user, usually has only one CPU and one or
two hard disks; the OS may support only one user.
· Multi-user system: more disks, more memory, multiple CPUs,
and a multi-user OS. Serve a large number of users who are
connected to the system vie terminals. Often called server
systems.
Database Systems Concepts 16.2 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Client-Server Systems
· Server systems satisfy requests generated at client systems,
whose general structure is shown below:
client client client client
server
...
network
Database Systems Concepts 16.3 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Client-Server Systems (Cont.)
· Database functionality can be divided into:
­ Back-end: manages access structures, query evaluation
and optimization, concurrency control and recovery.
­ Front-end: consists of tools such as forms, report-writers,
and graphical user interface facilities.
· The interface between the front-end and the back-end is
through SQL or through an application program interface.
Database Systems Concepts 16.4 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Client-Server Systems (Cont.)
· Advantages of replacing mainframes with networks of
workstations or personal computers connected to back-end
server machines:
­ better functionality for the cost
­ flexibility in locating resources and expanding facilities
­ better user interfaces
­ easier maintenance
· Server systems can be broadly categorized into two kinds:
­ transaction servers which are widely used in relational
database systems, and
­ data servers, used in object-oriented database systems
Database Systems Concepts 16.5 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Transaction Servers
· Also called query server systems or SQL server systems;
clients send requests to the server system where the
transactions are executed, and results are shipped back to the
client.
· Requests specified in SQL, and communicated to the server
through a remote procedure call (RPC) mechanism.
Transactional RPC allows many RPC calls to collectively form
a transaction.
· Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is an application program
interface standard from Microsoft for connecting to a server,
sending SQL requests, and receiving results.
Database Systems Concepts 16.6 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Data Servers
· Used in LANs, where there is a very high speed connection
between the clients and the server, the client machines are
comparable in processing power to the server machine, and
the tasks to be executed are compute intensive.
· Ship data to client machines where processing is performed,
and then ship results back to the server machine.
· This architecture requires full back-end functionality at the
clients.
· Used in many object-oriented database systems
· Issues:
­ Page-Shipping versus Item-Shipping
­ Locking
­ Data Caching
­ Lock Caching
Database Systems Concepts 16.7 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Data Servers (Cont.)
· Page-Shipping versus Item-Shipping
­ Smaller unit of shipping  more messages
­ Worth prefetching related items along with requested item
­ Page shipping can be thought of as a form of prefetching
· Locking
­ Overhead of requesting and getting locks from server is
high due to message delays
­ Can grant locks on requested and prefetched items; with
page shipping, transaction is granted lock on whole page.
­ Locks on the page can be deescalated to locks on items in
the page when there are lock conflicts. Locks on unused
items can then be returned to server.
Database Systems Concepts 16.8 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Data Servers (Cont.)
· Data Caching
­ Data can be cached at client even in between transactions
­ But check that data is up-to-date before it is used (cache
coherency)
­ Check can be done when requesting lock on data item
· Lock Caching
­ Locks can be retained by client system even in between
transactions
­ Transactions can acquire cached locks locally, without
contacting server
­ Server calls back locks from clients when it receives
conflicting lock request. Client returns lock once no local
transaction is using it.
­ Similar to deescalation, but across transactions.
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Parallel Systems
· Parallel database systems consist of multiple processors and
multiple disks connected by a fast interconnection network.
· A coarse-grain parallel machine consists of a small number of
powerful processors; a massively parallel or fine grain machine
utilizes thousands of smaller processors.
· Two main performance measures:
­ throughput -- the number of tasks that can be completed
in a given time interval
­ response time -- the amount of time it takes to complete a
single task from the time it is submitted
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Speed-Up and Scale-Up
· Speedup: a fixed-sized problem executing on a small system
is given to a system which is N-times larger.
­ Measured by:
speedup =
small system elapsed time
large system elapsed time
­ Speedup is linear if equation equals N.
· Scaleup: increase the size of both the problem and the system
­ N-times larger system used to perform N-times larger job
­ Measured by:
scaleup =
small system small problem elapsed time
big system big problem elapsed time
­ Scaleup is linear if equation equals 1.
Database Systems Concepts 16.11 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Speedup
linear speedup
sublinear speedup
resources
speed
Database Systems Concepts 16.12 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Scaleup
linear scaleup
sublinear scaleup
problem size
(resources increase proportional to problem size)
TS
TL
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Batch and Transaction Scaleup
Batch scaleup:
· A single large job; typical of most database queries and
scientific simulation.
· Use an N-times larger computer on N-times larger problem.
Transaction scaleup:
· Numerous small queries submitted by independent users to a
shared database; typical transaction processing and
timesharing systems.
· N-times as many users submitting requests (hence, N-times
as many requests) to an N-times larger database, on an
N-times larger computer.
· Well-suited to parallel execution.
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Factors Limiting Speedup and Scaleup
Speedup and scaleup are often sublinear due to:
· Startup costs: Cost of starting up multiple processes may
dominate computation time, if the degree of parallelism is high.
· Interference: Processes accessing shared resources (e.g.,
system bus, disks, or locks) compete with each other, thus
spending time waiting on other processes, rather than
performing useful work.
· Skew: Increasing the degree of parallelism increases the
variance in service times of parallely executing tasks. Overall
execution time determined by slowest of parallely executing
tasks.
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Interconnection Network Architectures
· Bus. System components send data on and receive data from
a single communication bus; does not scale well with
increasing parallelism.
· Mesh. Components are arranged as nodes in a grid, and each
component is connected to all adjacent components;
communication links grow with growing number of
components, and so scales better. But may require 2

n hops
to send message to a node (or

n with wraparound
connections at edge of grid).
· Hypercube. Components are numbered in binary;
components are connected to one another if their binary
representations differ in exactly one bit.
n components are connected to log(n) other components and
can reach each other via at most log(n) links; reduces
communication delays.
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Interconnection Architectures
Bus Interconnection
Mesh Interconnection Hypercube Interconnection
110
111
101
000
001
010
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Parallel Database Architectures
· Shared memory ­ processors share a common memory
· Shared disk ­ processors share a common disk
· Shared nothing ­ processors share neither a common
memory nor common disk
· Hierarchical ­ hybrid of the above architectures
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Architecture Structure
P
P
M
P
P
P
M M
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
P
M
(a) Shared memory
P
P
P
P
(c) Shared nothing (d) Hierarchical
PM
P
P
P
P
(b) Shared disk
PM
PM
PM
M
M
M
MP
M
M
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Shared Memory
· Processors and disks have access to a common memory,
typically via a bus or through an interconnection network.
· Extremely efficient communication between processors -- data
in shared memory can be accessed by any processor without
having to move it using software.
· Downside ­ architecture is not scalable beyond 32 or 64
processors since the bus or the interconnection network
becomes a bottleneck
· Widely used for lower degrees of parallelism (4 to 8).
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Shared Disk
· All processors can directly access all disks via an
interconnection network, but the processors have private
memories.
­ The memory bus is not a bottleneck
­ Architecture provides a degree of fault-tolerance -- if a
processor fails, the other processors can take over its tasks
since the database is resident on disks that are accessible
from all processors.
· Examples: IBM Sysplex and Digital VAXclusters running Rdb
(now Oracle Rdb) were early commercial users
· Downside: bottleneck now occurs at interconnection to the disk
subsystem.
· Shared-disk systems can scale to a somewhat larger number
of processors, but communication between processors is
slower.
Database Systems Concepts 16.21 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Shared Nothing
· Node consists of a processor, memory, and one or more disks.
Processors at one node communicate with another processor
at another node using an interconnection network. A node
functions as the server for the data on the disk or disks the
node owns.
· Examples: Teradata, Tandem, Oracle-nCUBE
· Data accessed from local disks (and local memory accesses)
do not pass through interconnection network, thereby
minimizing the interference of resource sharing.
· Shared-nothing multiprocessors can be scaled up to
thousands of processors without interference.
· Main drawback: cost of communication and non-local disk
access; sending data involves software interaction at both
ends.
Database Systems Concepts 16.22 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Hierarchical
· Combines characteristics of shared-memory, shared-disk, and
shared-nothing architectures.
· Top level is a shared-nothing architecture ­ nodes connected
by an interconnection network, and do not share disks or
memory with each other.
· Each node of the system could be a shared-memory system
with a few processors.
· Alternatively, each node could be a shared-disk system, and
each of the systems sharing a set of disks could be a
shared-memory system.
· Reduce the complexity of programming such systems by
distributed virtual-memory architectures.
Database Systems Concepts 16.23 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Distributed Systems
· Data spread over multiple machines (also referred to as sites
or nodes).
· Network interconnects the machines
· Data shared by users on multiple machines
· Illusion of a non-distributed system
· Differentiate between local and global transactions
­ A local transaction accesses data in the single site at which
the transaction was initiated.
­ A global transaction either accesses data in a site different
from the one at which the transaction was initiated or
accesses data in several different sites.
Database Systems Concepts 16.24 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Trade-offs in Distributed Systems
· Sharing data ­ users at one site able to access the data
residing at some other sites.
· Autonomy ­ each site is able to retain a degree of control over
data stored locally.
· Higher system availability through redundancy -- data can be
replicated at remote sites, and system can function even if a
site fails.
· Disadvantage: added complexity required to ensure proper
coordination among sites.
­ Software development cost.
­ Greater potential for bugs.
­ Increased processing overhead.
Database Systems Concepts 16.25 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Network Types
· Local-area networks (LANs) ­ composed of processors that
are distributed over small geographical areas, such as a single
building or a few adjacent buildings.
· Wide-area networks (WANs) ­ composed of processors
distributed over a large geographical area.
­ Discontinuous connection ­ WANs, such as those based on
periodic dial-up (using, e.g., UUCP), that are connected only
for part of the time.
­ Continuous connection ­ WANs, such as the Internet, where
hosts are connected to the network at all times.
Database Systems Concepts 16.26 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997
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Network Types (Cont.)
· WANs with continuous connection are needed for implementing
distributed database systems
· Groupware applications such as Lotus notes can work on
WANs with discontinuous connection:
­ Data is replicated.
­ Updates are propagated to replicas periodically.
­ No global locking is possible, and copies of data may be
independently updated.
­ Non-serializable executions can thus result. Conflicting
updates may have to be detected, and resolved in an
application dependent manner.
Database Systems Concepts 16.27 Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan c 1997