[net.ai] HP Computer Colloquium 7/21

Kluger.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA@sri-unix.UUCP (07/19/83)

                Guy M. Lohman

                Research Staff Member
                IBM Research Laboratory
                San Jose, CA

                R* Project

The R* project was formed to address the problems of distributed 
databases, with the objective of designing and building an
experimental prototype database management system which would handle
replicated and partitioned data for both query and modification.  The
R* prototype supports a confederation of voluntarily cooperating,
homogeneous, relational database management systems, each with its own
data, sharing data across a communication network.

Two seemingly conflicting goals of distributed databases have been 
resolved efficiently in R*:  single-site image and site autonomy.  To 
make the system easy to use, R* presents a single-site image:  a
user's request for data need not be aware of or specify either the
location or the access path for retrieving that data, requiring close
coordination among sites.  On the other hand, to make local data
available even when other sites or communication lines fail, each R*
database site must be highly autonomous.

The talk will discuss how these goals were compatibly achieved in the 
design and implementation of R* without sacrificing system
performance.

        Thursday, July 21, 1983 4:00 pm

        Stanford Park Labs
        Hewlett Packard
        5M Conference room
        1501 Page Mill Road

*** Be sure to arrive at the building's lobby ON TIME, so that you may
be escorted to the conference room.