Distributed Databases

Distributed Databases

Heterogeneous and Homogeneous Databases

Distributed Data Storage
Distributed Transactions
Commit Protocols
Concurrency Control in Distributed Databases
Distributed Query Processing

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Distributed Database System
A distributed database system consists of loosely coupled sites that share
no physical component
Database systems that run on each site are independent of each other
Transactions may access data at one or more sites

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.3 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Homogeneous Distributed Databases
In a homogeneous distributed database
All sites have identical software
Are aware of each other and agree to cooperate in processing user
requests.
Each site surrenders part of its autonomy in terms of right to change
schemas or software
Appears to user as a single system
In a heterogeneous distributed database
Different sites may use different schemas and software
Difference in schema is a major problem for query processing
Difference in software is a major problem for transaction
processing
Sites may not be aware of each other and may provide only
limited facilities for cooperation in transaction processing

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Data Replication
A relation or fragment of a relation is replicated if it is stored
redundantly in two or more sites.
Full replication of a relation is the case where the relation is stored at
all sites.
Fully redundant databases are those in which every site contains a
copy of the entire database.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Data Replication (Cont.)

Advantages of Replication
Availability: failure of site containing relation r does not result in
unavailability of r is replicas exist.
Parallelism: queries on r may be processed by several nodes in parallel.
Reduced data transfer: relation r is available locally at each site
containing a replica of r.
Disadvantages of Replication
Increased cost of updates: each replica of relation r must be updated.
Increased complexity of concurrency control: concurrent updates to
distinct replicas may lead to inconsistent data unless special
concurrency control mechanisms are implemented.
One solution: choose one copy as primary copy and apply
concurrency control operations on primary copy

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Data Fragmentation

Division of relation r into fragments r1, r2, …, rn which contain sufficient

information to reconstruct relation r.
Horizontal fragmentation: each tuple of r is assigned to one or more
fragments
Vertical fragmentation: the schema for relation r is split into several
smaller schemas
All schemas must contain a common candidate key (or superkey) to
ensure lossless join property.
A special attribute, the tuple-id attribute may be added to each
schema to serve as a candidate key.
Example : relation account with following schema
Account = (account_number, branch_name , balance )

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Horizontal Fragmentation of account Relation

account_number branch_name balance

A-305 Hillside 500

A-226 Hillside 336
A-155 Hillside 62

account1 = σbranch_name=“Hillside” (account )

account_number branch_name balance

A-177 Valleyview 205

A-402 Valleyview 10000
A-408 Valleyview 1123
A-639 Valleyview 750

account2 = σbranch_name=“Valleyview” (account )

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Vertical Fragmentation of employee_info Relation

branch_name customer_name tuple_id

Hillside Lowman 1
Hillside Camp 2
Valleyview Camp 3
Valleyview Kahn 4
Hillside Kahn 5
Valleyview Kahn 6
Valleyview Green 7
deposit1 = Πbranch_name, customer_name, tuple_id (employee_info )
account_number balance tuple_id

A-305 500 1
A-226 336 2
A-177 205 3
A-402 10000 4
A-155 62 5
A-408 1123 6
A-639 750 7
deposit2 = Πaccount_number, balance, tuple_id (employee_info )
Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Advantages of Fragmentation

Horizontal:
allows parallel processing on fragments of a relation
allows a relation to be split so that tuples are located where they are
most frequently accessed
Vertical:
allows tuples to be split so that each part of the tuple is stored where
it is most frequently accessed
tuple-id attribute allows efficient joining of vertical fragments
Vertical and horizontal fragmentation can be mixed.
Fragments may be successively fragmented to an arbitrary depth.
Replication and fragmentation can be combined
Relation is partitioned into several fragments: system maintains
several identical replicas of each such fragment.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.10 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Data Transparency
Data transparency: Degree to which system user may remain unaware
of the details of how and where the data items are stored in a distributed
system
Consider transparency issues in relation to:
Fragmentation transparency
Replication transparency
Location transparency
Naming of data items: criteria
1. Every data item must have a system-wide unique name.
2. It should be possible to find the location of data items efficiently.
3. It should be possible to change the location of data items
transparently.
4. Each site should be able to create new data items autonomously.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.11 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Centralized Scheme - Name Server
Structure:
name server assigns all names
each site maintains a record of local data items
sites ask name server to locate non-local data items
Advantages:
satisfies naming criteria 1-3
Disadvantages:
does not satisfy naming criterion 4
name server is a potential performance bottleneck
name server is a single point of failure

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.12 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Use of Aliases
Alternative to centralized scheme: each site prefixes its own site
identifier to any name that it generates i.e., site 17.account.
Fulfills having a unique identifier, and avoids problems associated
with central control.
However, fails to achieve network transparency.
Solution: Create a set of aliases for data items; Store the mapping of
aliases to the real names at each site.
The user can be unaware of the physical location of a data item, and
is unaffected if the data item is moved from one site to another.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Distributed Transactions
Transaction may access data at several sites.
Each site has a local transaction manager responsible for:
Maintaining a log for recovery purposes
Participating in coordinating the concurrent execution of the
transactions executing at that site.
Each site has a transaction coordinator, which is responsible for:
Starting the execution of transactions that originate at the site.
Distributing subtransactions at appropriate sites for execution.
Coordinating the termination of each transaction that originates at
the site, which may result in the transaction being committed at all
sites or aborted at all sites.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Transaction System Architecture

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.15 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 System Failure Modes
Failures unique to distributed systems:
Failure of a site.
Loss of massages
Handled by network transmission control protocols such as
TCP-IP
Failure of a communication link
Handled by network protocols, by routing messages via
alternative links
Network partition
A network is said to be partitioned when it has been split into
two or more subsystems that lack any connection between
them
– Note: a subsystem may consist of a single node
Network partitioning and site failures are generally indistinguishable.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Commit Protocols
Commit protocols are used to ensure atomicity across sites
a transaction which executes at multiple sites must either be
committed at all the sites, or aborted at all the sites.
not acceptable to have a transaction committed at one site and
aborted at another
The two-phase commit (2PC) protocol is widely used
The three-phase commit (3PC) protocol is more complicated and
more expensive, but avoids some drawbacks of two-phase commit
protocol. This protocol is not used in practice.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.17 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Two Phase Commit Protocol (2PC)
Assumes fail-stop model – failed sites simply stop working, and do
not cause any other harm, such as sending incorrect messages to
other sites.
Execution of the protocol is initiated by the coordinator after the last
step of the transaction has been reached.
The protocol involves all the local sites at which the transaction
executed
Let T be a transaction initiated at site Si, and let the transaction
coordinator at Si be Ci

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Phase 1: Obtaining a Decision
Coordinator asks all participants to prepare to commit transaction Ti.
Ci adds the records <prepare T> to the log and forces log to
stable storage
sends prepare T messages to all sites at which T executed
Upon receiving message, transaction manager at site determines if it
can commit the transaction
if not, add a record <no T> to the log and send abort T message
to Ci
if the transaction can be committed, then:
add the record <ready T> to the log
force all records for T to stable storage
send ready T message to Ci

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.19 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Phase 2: Recording the Decision
T can be committed of Ci received a ready T message from all the
participating sites: otherwise T must be aborted.
Coordinator adds a decision record, <commit T> or <abort T>, to the
log and forces record onto stable storage. Once the record stable
storage it is irrevocable (even if failures occur)
Coordinator sends a message to each participant informing it of the
decision (commit or abort)
Participants take appropriate action locally.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.20 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Handling of Failures - Site Failure
When site Si recovers, it examines its log to determine the fate of
transactions active at the time of the failure.
Log contain <commit T> record: site executes redo (T)
Log contains <abort T> record: site executes undo (T)
Log contains <ready T> record: site must consult Ci to determine the
fate of T.
If T committed, redo (T)
If T aborted, undo (T)
The log contains no control records concerning T
implies that Sk failed before responding to the prepare T message
from Ci
Sk must execute undo (T)

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.21 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Handling of Failures-
Failures- Coordinator Failure

If coordinator fails while the commit protocol for T is executing then

participating sites must decide on T’s fate:
1. If an active site contains a <commit T> record in its log, then T must
be committed.
2. If an active site contains an <abort T> record in its log, then T must
be aborted.
3. If some active participating site does not contain a <ready T> record
in its log, then the failed coordinator Ci cannot have decided to
commit T.
1. Can therefore abort T.
4. If none of the above cases holds, then all active sites must have a
<ready T> record in their logs, but no additional control records (such
as <abort T> of <commit T>).
In this case active sites must wait for Ci to recover, to find
decision.
Blocking problem: active sites may have to wait for failed coordinator to
recover.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.22 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Handling of Failures - Network Partition
If the coordinator and all its participants remain in one partition, the
failure has no effect on the commit protocol.
If the coordinator and its participants belong to several partitions:
Sites that are not in the partition containing the coordinator think
the coordinator has failed, and execute the protocol to deal with
failure of the coordinator.
No harm results, but sites may still have to wait for decision
from coordinator.
The coordinator and the sites are in the same partition as the
coordinator think that the sites in the other partition have failed, and
follow the usual commit protocol.
Again, no harm results

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.23 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Concurrency Control
Modify concurrency control schemes for use in distributed environment.
We assume that each site participates in the execution of a commit
protocol to ensure global transaction automicity.
We assume all replicas of any item are updated
Will see how to relax this in case of site failures later

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.24 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Single-
Single-Lock
Lock--Manager Approach
System maintains a single lock manager that resides in a single
chosen site, say Si
When a transaction needs to lock a data item, it sends a lock request
to Si and lock manager determines whether the lock can be granted
immediately
If yes, lock manager sends a message to the site which initiated
the request
If no, request is delayed until it can be granted, at which time a
message is sent to the initiating site

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.25 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Single-
Single-Lock
Lock--Manager Approach (Cont.)
The transaction can read the data item from any one of the sites at
which a replica of the data item resides.
Writes must be performed on all replicas of a data item
Advantages of scheme:
Simple implementation
Simple deadlock handling
Disadvantages of scheme are:
Bottleneck: lock manager site becomes a bottleneck
Vulnerability: system is vulnerable to lock manager site failure.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.26 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Distributed Lock Manager
In this approach, functionality of locking is implemented by lock
managers at each site
Lock managers control access to local data items
But special protocols may be used for replicas
Advantage: work is distributed and can be made robust to failures
Disadvantage: deadlock detection is more complicated
Lock managers cooperate for deadlock detection
More on this later
Several variants of this approach
Primary copy
Majority protocol
Biased protocol
Quorum consensus

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.27 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Primary Copy
Choose one replica of data item to be the primary copy.
Site containing the replica is called the primary site for that data
item
Different data items can have different primary sites
When a transaction needs to lock a data item Q, it requests a lock at
the primary site of Q.
Implicitly gets lock on all replicas of the data item
Benefit
Concurrency control for replicated data handled similarly to
unreplicated data - simple implementation.
Drawback
If the primary site of Q fails, Q is inaccessible even though other
sites containing a replica may be accessible.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.28 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Majority Protocol
Local lock manager at each site administers lock and unlock requests
for data items stored at that site.
When a transaction wishes to lock an unreplicated data item Q
residing at site Si, a message is sent to Si ‘s lock manager.
If Q is locked in an incompatible mode, then the request is delayed
until it can be granted.
When the lock request can be granted, the lock manager sends a
message back to the initiator indicating that the lock request has
been granted.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.29 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Majority Protocol (Cont.)
In case of replicated data
If Q is replicated at n sites, then a lock request message must be
sent to more than half of the n sites in which Q is stored.
The transaction does not operate on Q until it has obtained a lock
on a majority of the replicas of Q.
When writing the data item, transaction performs writes on all
replicas.
Benefit
Can be used even when some sites are unavailable
details on how handle writes in the presence of site failure later
Drawback
Requires 2(n/2 + 1) messages for handling lock requests, and (n/2
+ 1) messages for handling unlock requests.
Potential for deadlock even with single item - e.g., each of 3
transactions may have locks on 1/3rd of the replicas of a data.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.30 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Biased Protocol
Local lock manager at each site as in majority protocol, however,
requests for shared locks are handled differently than requests for
exclusive locks.
Shared locks. When a transaction needs to lock data item Q, it simply
requests a lock on Q from the lock manager at one site containing a
replica of Q.
Exclusive locks. When transaction needs to lock data item Q, it
requests a lock on Q from the lock manager at all sites containing a
replica of Q.
Advantage - imposes less overhead on read operations.
Disadvantage - additional overhead on writes

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.31 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Quorum Consensus Protocol
A generalization of both majority and biased protocols
Each site is assigned a weight.
Let S be the total of all site weights
Choose two values read quorum Qr and write quorum Qw
Such that Qr + Qw > S and
2 * Qw > S
Quorums can be chosen (and S computed) separately for each
item
Each read must lock enough replicas that the sum of the site weights
is >= Qr
Each write must lock enough replicas that the sum of the site weights
is >= Qw
For now we assume all replicas are written
Extensions to allow some sites to be unavailable described later

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.32 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Timestamping
Timestamp based concurrency-control protocols can be used in
distributed systems
Each transaction must be given a unique timestamp
Main problem: how to generate a timestamp in a distributed fashion
Each site generates a unique local timestamp using either a logical
counter or the local clock.
Global unique timestamp is obtained by concatenating the unique
local timestamp with the unique identifier.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.33 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Timestamping (Cont.)
A site with a slow clock will assign smaller timestamps
Still logically correct: serializability not affected
But: “disadvantages” transactions
To fix this problem
Define within each site Si a logical clock (LCi), which generates
the unique local timestamp
Require that Si advance its logical clock whenever a request is
received from a transaction Ti with timestamp < x,y> and x is
greater that the current value of LCi.
In this case, site Si advances its logical clock to the value x + 1.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.34 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deadlock Handling
Consider the following two transactions and history, with item X and
transaction T1 at site 1, and item Y and transaction T2 at site 2:

T1: write (X) T2: write (Y)

write (Y) write (X)

X-lock on X
write (X) X-lock on Y
write (Y)
wait for X-lock on X

Wait for X-lock on Y

Result: deadlock which cannot be detected locally at either site

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.35 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Centralized Approach
A global wait-for graph is constructed and maintained in a single site;
the deadlock-detection coordinator
Real graph: Real, but unknown, state of the system.
Constructed graph:Approximation generated by the controller
during the execution of its algorithm .
the global wait-for graph can be constructed when:
a new edge is inserted in or removed from one of the local wait-
for graphs.
a number of changes have occurred in a local wait-for graph.
the coordinator needs to invoke cycle-detection.
If the coordinator finds a cycle, it selects a victim and notifies all sites.
The sites roll back the victim transaction.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.36 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Local and Global Wait-
Wait-For Graphs

Local

Global

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.37 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example Wait-
Wait-For Graph for False Cycles

Initial state:

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.38 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 False Cycles (Cont.)
Suppose that starting from the state shown in figure,
1. T2 releases resources at S1
resulting in a message remove T1 → T2 message from the
Transaction Manager at site S1 to the coordinator)
2. And then T2 requests a resource held by T3 at site S2
resulting in a message insert T2 → T3 from S2 to the coordinator
Suppose further that the insert message reaches before the delete
message
this can happen due to network delays
The coordinator would then find a false cycle
T1 → T2 → T3 → T1
The false cycle above never existed in reality.
False cycles cannot occur if two-phase locking is used.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.39 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Unnecessary Rollbacks
Unnecessary rollbacks may result when deadlock has indeed
occurred and a victim has been picked, and meanwhile one of the
transactions was aborted for reasons unrelated to the deadlock.
Unnecessary rollbacks can result from false cycles in the global wait-
for graph; however, likelihood of false cycles is low.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.40 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Distributed Query Processing
For centralized systems, the primary criterion for measuring the cost
of a particular strategy is the number of disk accesses.
In a distributed system, other issues must be taken into account:
The cost of a data transmission over the network.
The potential gain in performance from having several sites
process parts of the query in parallel.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.41 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Query Transformation
Translating algebraic queries on fragments.
It must be possible to construct relation r from its fragments
Replace relation r by the expression to construct relation r from its
fragments
Consider the horizontal fragmentation of the account relation into
account1 = σ branch_name = “Hillside” (account )
account2 = σ branch_name = “Valleyview” (account )
The query σ branch_name = “Hillside” (account ) becomes
σ branch_name = “Hillside” (account1 ∪ account2)
which is optimized into
σ branch_name = “Hillside” (account1) ∪ σ branch_name = “Hillside” (account2)

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.42 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example Query (Cont.)
Since account1 has only tuples pertaining to the Hillside branch, we can
eliminate the selection operation.
Apply the definition of account2 to obtain
σ branch_name = “Hillside” (σ branch_name = “Valleyview” (account )
This expression is the empty set regardless of the contents of the account
relation.
Final strategy is for the Hillside site to return account1 as the result of the
query.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.43 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Simple Join Processing
Consider the following relational algebra expression in which the three
relations are neither replicated nor fragmented
account depositor branch
account is stored at site S1
depositor at S2
branch at S3
For a query issued at site SI, the system needs to produce the result at
site SI

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.44 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Possible Query Processing Strategies
Ship copies of all three relations to site SI and choose a strategy for
processing the entire locally at site SI.
Ship a copy of the account relation to site S2 and compute temp1 =
account depositor at S2. Ship temp1 from S2 to S3, and compute
temp2 = temp1 branch at S3. Ship the result temp2 to SI.
Devise similar strategies, exchanging the roles S1, S2, S3
Must consider following factors:
amount of data being shipped
cost of transmitting a data block between sites
relative processing speed at each site

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.45 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Semijoin Strategy
Let r1 be a relation with schema R1 stores at site S1
Let r2 be a relation with schema R2 stores at site S2
Evaluate the expression r1 r2 and obtain the result at S1.
1. Compute temp1 ← ∏R1 ∩ R2 (r1) at S1.
2. Ship temp1 from S1 to S2.
3. Compute temp2 ← r2 temp1 at S2
4. Ship temp2 from S2 to S1.
5. Compute r1 temp2 at S1. This is the same as r1 r2 .

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.46 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Formal Definition
The semijoin of r1 with r2, is denoted by:
r1 r2
it is defined by:
∏R1 (r1 r2 )
Thus, r1 r2 selects those tuples of r1 that contributed to r1 r2 .
In step 3 above, temp2=r2 r1 .
For joins of several relations, the above strategy can be extended to a
series of semijoin steps.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.47 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Join Strategies that Exploit Parallelism

Consider r1 r2 r3 r4 where relation ri is stored at site Si. The result

must be presented at site S1.
r1 is shipped to S2 and r1 r2 is computed at S2: simultaneously r3 is
shipped to S4 and r3 r4 is computed at S4
S2 ships tuples of (r1 r2) to S1 as they produced;
S4 ships tuples of (r3 r4) to S1
Once tuples of (r1 r2) and (r3 r4) arrive at S1 (r1 r2 ) (r3 r4) is
computed in parallel with the computation of (r1 r2) at S2 and the
computation of (r3 r4) at S4.

Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, Aug 22, 2005. 22.48 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan