Distributed and Parallel Database Systems

Overview

The maturation of Database Management System (DBMS) technology has coincided with significant developments in distributed computing and parallel processing technologies. The end result is the emergence of distributed database management systems and parallel database management systems. These systems have started to become the dominant data management tools for highly data-intensive applications. The integration of workstations in a distributed environment enables a more efficient function distribution in which application programs run on workstations, called application servers, while database functions are handled by dedicated computers, called database servers. This has led to the present trend in distributed system architecture, where sites are organized as specialized servers rather than as general-purpose computers.