barnett@grymoire.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) (01/30/91)
I am looking for literature describing distributed databases, and the problems inherent in them. My brother is working for a company who thinks building a distributed database is simple. As he will have to maintain this product, he is very concerned! The developers (if you can call them that) want to hack together something that has pieces of the database distributed across different machines. They don't seem to understand concepts like two-phase commit, and how to keep distributed databases from getting out of sync. And if they do, how to recover. The answer is "Oh, I doubt that would happen." Therefore I am looking for some literature that describes all of the problems a distributed database should watch out for. Or else a list of features such a database should have, with an explanation WHY these are needed. Send me E-mail - to keep the noise level down. Thanks. -- Bruce G. Barnett barnett@crd.ge.com uunet!crdgw1!barnett
mto@gte.com (Tamer Ozsu) (01/30/91)
In article <BARNETT.91Jan29143340@grymoire.crd.ge.com> barnett@crdgw1.ge.com writes: >I am looking for literature describing distributed databases, and the >problems inherent in them. [stuff deleted] >Therefore I am looking for some literature that describes all of the >problems a distributed database should watch out for. Or else a list >of features such a database should have, with an explanation WHY these >are needed. > >Send me E-mail - to keep the noise level down. Thanks. >-- >Bruce G. Barnett barnett@crd.ge.com uunet!crdgw1!barnett Instead of sending the poster email, I decided to post this here because I think it might be of interest to a wider audience. Similar questions, particularly related to distributed query processing were asked a while ago, so there seems to be some interest. We have recently published a book on distributed databases. The reference is M.T. Ozsu and P. Valduriez. Principles of Distributed Database Systems. Prentice-Hall, 1991 (ISBN 0-13-691643-0). We discuss all the issues that relate to distributed databases. This includes issues that are related to the implementation of distributed database managers as well as issues related to their use (data fragmentation, allocation, etc). I don't want to give the full table of contents since some may view this as an advertisement on the net. However, if enough people show interest in the contents, I can post it as well. ==Tamer -- M. Tamer Ozsu Telephone: (617) 466-2098 GTE Laboratories Fax: (617) 290-0628 40 Sylvan Road Internet: mto@gte.com Waltham, MA 02254
doug@bear.cis.ohio-state.edu (Doug Kerr) (01/31/91)
In article <BARNETT.91Jan29143340@grymoire.crd.ge.com> barnett@crdgw1.ge.com writes: >I am looking for literature describing distributed databases, and the >problems inherent in them. I can recommend two books: Bernstein, Hadzilacos & Goodman, "Concurrency Control and Recovery in Database Systems", Addison-Wesley, 1987, ISBN 0-201-10715-5. This book has sections on distributed database problems. Ozsu & Valduriez, "Principles of Distributed Database Systems", Prentice Hall, 1991, ISBN 0-13-691643-0. -- Douglas S. Kerr, Department of Computer and Information Science The Ohio State University; 2036 Neil Ave. Columbus OH USA 43210-1277 doug@cis.ohio-state.edu 614/292-1519 ...!pyramid!osu-cis!doug
dafuller@sequent.UUCP (David Fuller) (02/02/91)
Readings in Database Systems, edited by Michael Stonebreaker (Morgan- Kaufmann) would be a good start. If they really know nothing about DBMS, An Introduction to Database Systems by CJ Date would be crucial. In article <BARNETT.91Jan29143340@grymoire.crd.ge.com> barnett@crdgw1.ge.com writes: >I am looking for literature describing distributed databases, and the >problems inherent in them. > >My brother is working for a company who thinks building a distributed >database is simple. As he will have to maintain this product, he is >very concerned! > >The developers (if you can call them that) want to hack together >something that has pieces of the database distributed across different >machines. They don't seem to understand concepts like two-phase >commit, and how to keep distributed databases from getting out of >sync. And if they do, how to recover. The answer is "Oh, I doubt that >would happen." > >Therefore I am looking for some literature that describes all of the >problems a distributed database should watch out for. Or else a list >of features such a database should have, with an explanation WHY these >are needed. > >Send me E-mail - to keep the noise level down. Thanks. >-- >Bruce G. Barnett barnett@crd.ge.com uunet!crdgw1!barnett -- Dave Fuller Sequent Computer Systems Think of this as the hyper-signature. (708) 318-0050 (humans) It means all things to all people. dafuller@sequent.com