In computing, virtual memory is a memory management technique developed for multitasking kernels.

This technique virtualizes a computer architecture's various hardware memory devices (such as RAM modules and disk storage drives), allowing a program to be designed as though:

there is only one hardware memory device and this "virtual" device acts like a RAM module. the program has, by default, sole access to this virtual RAM module as the basis for a contiguous working memory (an address space).

Systems that employ virtual memory:

use hardware memory more efficiently than systems without virtual memory.[citation needed] make the programming of applications easier by: o hiding fragmentation. o delegating to the kernel the burden of managing the memory hierarchy; there is no need for the program to handle overlays explicitly. o obviating the need to relocate program code or to access memory with relative addressing.

Memory virtualization is a generalization of the concept of virtual memory. Virtual memory is an integral part of a computer architecture; all implementations (excluding[dubious discuss] emulators and virtual machines) require hardware support, typically in the form of a memory management unit built into the CPU. Consequently, older operating systems (such as DOS[1] of the 1980s or those for the mainframes of the 1960s) generally have no virtual memory functionality[dubious discuss], though notable exceptions include the Atlas, B5000, IBM System/360 Model 67, IBM System/370 mainframe systems of the early 1970s, and the Apple Lisa project circa 1980. Embedded systems and other special-purpose computer systems that require very fast and/or very consistent response times may opt not to use virtual memory due to decreased determinism; virtual memory systems trigger unpredictable interrupts that may produce unwanted "jitter" during I/O operations. This is because embedded hardware costs are often kept low by implementing all such operations with software (a technique called bit-banging) rather than with dedicated hardware. In any case, embedded systems usually have little use for multitasking features or complicated memory hierarchies.

In computer engineering, a cache (pronounced /k/ kash in US and /ke/ kaysh in Aust/NZ) is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere. If requested data is contained in the cache (cache hit), this request can be served by simply reading the cache, which is comparatively faster. Otherwise (cache miss), the data has to be recomputed or fetched from its original storage location, which is comparatively slower. Hence, the more requests can be served from the cache the faster the overall system performance is. As opposed to a buffer, which is managed explicitly by a client[citation needed], a cache stores data transparently: This means that a client who is requesting data from a system is not aware that the cache exists, which is the origin of the name cache (from French "cacher", to conceal). To be cost efficient and to enable an efficient use of data, caches are relatively small. Nevertheless, caches have proven themselves in many areas of computing because access patterns in typical computer applications have locality of reference. References exhibit temporal locality if data is requested again that has been recently requested already. References exhibit spatial locality if data is requested that is physically stored close to data that has been requested already.

CPU cache
Main article: CPU cache Small memories on or close to the CPU can operate faster than the much larger main memory. Most CPUs since the 1980s have used one or more caches, and modern high-end embedded, desktop and server microprocessors may have as many as half a dozen, each specialized for a specific function. Examples of caches with a specific function are the D-cache and I-cache (data cache and instruction cache).

[edit] Disk cache

Main article: Page cache

While CPU caches are generally managed entirely by hardware, a variety of software manages other caches. The page cache in main memory, which is an example of disk cache, is managed by the operating system kernel. While the hard drive's hardware disk buffer is sometimes misleadingly referred to as "disk cache", its main functions are write sequencing and read prefetching. Repeated cache hits are relatively rare, due to the small size of the buffer in comparison to the drive's capacity. However, high-end disk controllers often have their own on-board cache of hard disk data blocks. Finally, fast local hard disk can also cache information held on even slower data storage devices, such as remote servers (web cache) or local tape drives or optical jukeboxes. Such a scheme is the main concept of hierarchical storage management.

[edit] Web cache

Main article: Web cache Web browsers and web proxy servers employ web caches to store previous responses from web servers, such as web pages. Web caches reduce the amount of information that needs to be transmitted across the network, as information previously stored in the cache can often be reused. This reduces bandwidth and processing requirements of the web server, and helps to improve responsiveness for users of the web. Web browsers employ a built-in web cache, but some internet service providers or organizations also use a caching proxy server, which is a web cache that is shared among all users of that network. Another form of cache is P2P caching, where the files most sought for by peer-to-peer applications are stored in an ISP cache to accelerate P2P transfers. There are three kinds of web caches: 1)Client Caching, 2)Proxy Caches, 3)Gateway caches.

[edit] Other caches

The BIND DNS daemon caches a mapping of domain names to IP addresses, as does a resolver library. Write-through operation is common when operating over unreliable networks (like an Ethernet LAN), because of the enormous complexity of the coherency protocol required between multiple write-back caches when communication is unreliable. For instance, web page caches and clientside network file system caches (like those in NFS or SMB) are typically read-only or writethrough specifically to keep the network protocol simple and reliable. Search engines also frequently make web pages they have indexed available from their cache. For example, Google provides a "Cached" link next to each search result. This can prove useful when web pages from a web server are temporarily or permanently inaccessible.

Another type of caching is storing computed results that will likely be needed again, or memoization. ccache, a program that caches the output of the compilation to speed up the second-time compilation, exemplifies this type. Database caching can substantially improve the throughput of database applications, for example in the processing of indexes, data dictionaries, and frequently used subsets of data. Distributed caching[1] uses caches spread across different networked hosts.

[edit] The difference between buffer and cache

The terms "buffer" and "cache" are not mutually exclusive and the functions are frequently combined; however, there is a difference in intent. A buffer is a temporary memory location, that is traditionally used because CPU instructions cannot directly address data stored in peripheral devices. Thus, addressable memory is used as intermediate stage. Additionally such a buffer may be feasible when a large block of data is assembled or disassembled (as required by a storage device), or when data may be delivered in a different order than that in which it is produced. Also a whole buffer of data is usually transferred sequentially (for example to hard disk), so buffering itself sometimes increases transfer performance or reduce the variation or jitter of the transfer's latency as opposed to caching where the intent is to reduce the latency. These benefits are present even if the buffered data are written to the buffer once and read from the buffer once. A cache also increases transfer performance. A part of the increase similarly comes from the possibility that multiple small transfers will combine into one large block. But the main performance-gain occurs because there is a good chance that the same datum will be read from cache multiple times, or that written data will soon be read. A cache's sole purpose is to reduce accesses to the underlying slower storage. Cache is also usually an abstraction layer that is designed to be invisible from the perspective of neighbouring layers.

Cache (pronounced cash) memory is extremely fast memory that is built into a computers central processing unit (CPU), or located next to it on a separate chip. The CPU uses cache memory to store instructions that are repeatedly required to run programs, improving overall system speed. The advantage of cache memory is that the CPU does not have to use the motherboards system bus for data transfer. Whenever data must be passed through the system bus, the data transfer speed slows to the motherboards capability. The CPU can process data much faster by avoiding the bottleneck created by the system bus. Cpu Cache on wiseGEEK:

When looking at new computers check out the amounts of L1, L2 and L3 cache. All else being equal, a system with more CPU cache will perform better, and synchronous cache is faster than asynchronous. CPU cache caters to the needs of the microprocessor by anticipating data requests so that processing instructions are provided without delay. CPU cache is faster than random access memory (RAM), and is designed to prevent bottlenecks in performance.

L2 Cache on wiseGEEK:

To optimize overall performance, the best result is obtained by having the smallest, fastest cache most immediate to the CPU itself, followed by a slightly larger pool of L2 cache, and an even larger pool of L3 cache. The idea is to keep the most frequently used instructions in L1, with L2 cache holding the next most likely needed bits of data, and L3 following suit. While L1 cache is built into CPUs today, it might also reside alongside the CPU on older PCs. L2 cache can be built into the CPU or present on the motherboard, along with L3 cache.

L1 Cache on wiseGEEK:

The goal is to maximize hits and minimize misses that slow performance. While L1 cache is built into CPUs today, it might also reside alongside the CPU on older PCs. When this happens, the CPU can process the request without delay, drastically improving computer performance. The CPU will check L1 cache first, followed by L2 and L3 cache. If it finds the needed bits of data, this is a cache hit, but if the cache doesnt anticipate the request, the CPU gets a cache miss, and the data must be pulled from slower RAM or the hard drive which is slower still.

virtual memory

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)(n.) An imaginary memory area supported by some operating systems (for example, Windows but not DOS) in conjunction with the hardware. You can think of virtual memory as an alternate set of memory addresses. Programs use these virtual addresses rather than real addresses to store instructions and data. When the program is actually executed, the virtual addresses are converted into real memory addresses. The purpose of virtual memory is to enlarge the address space, the set of addresses a program can utilize. For example, virtual memory might contain twice as many addresses as main memory. A program using all of virtual memory, therefore, would not be able to fit in main memory all at once. Nevertheless, the computer could execute

such a program by copying into main memory those portions of the program needed at any given point during execution. To facilitate copying virtual memory into real memory, the operating system divides virtual memory into pages, each of which contains a fixed number of addresses. Each page is stored on a disk until it is needed. When the page is needed, the operating system copies it from disk to main memory, translating the virtual addresses into real addresses. The process of translating virtual addresses into real addresses is called mapping. The copying of virtual pages from disk to main memory is known as paging or swapping.

- Virtual Memory is a feature of an operating system that enables a process to use a memory (RAM) address space that is independent of other processes running in the same system, and use a space that is larger than the actual amount of RAM present, temporarily relegating some contents from RAM to a disk, with little or no overhead.

An extranet is a computer network that allows controlled access from the outside, for specific business or educational purposes. An extranet can be viewed as an extension of a company's intranet that is extended to users outside the company, usually partners, vendors, and suppliers. It has also been described as a "state of mind" in which the Internet is perceived as a way to do business with a selected set of other companies (business-to-business, B2B), in isolation from all other Internet users. In contrast, business-to-consumer (B2C) models involve known servers of one or more companies, communicating with previously unknown consumer users. An extranet is like a DMZ in that it provides access to needed services for channel partners, without granting access to an organization's entire network.

Enterprise applications
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, several industries started to use the term extranet to describe central repositories of shared data made accessible via the web only to authorized members of particular work groups. Some applications are offered on a Software as a Service (SaaS) basis by vendors functioning as Application service providers (ASPs). Specially secured extranets are used to provide virtual data room services to companies in several sectors (including law and accountancy). For example, in the construction industry, project teams may access a project extranet to share drawings and documents, make comments, issue requests for information, etc. In 2003 in the United Kingdom, several of the leading vendors formed the Network for Construction Collaboration Technology Providers (NCCTP) to promote the technologies and to establish data exchange standards between the different data systems. The same type of construction-focused technologies have also been developed in the United States, Australia and mainland Europe.[3]

[edit] Advantages

Exchange large volumes of data using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Share product catalogs exclusively with trade partners Collaborate with other companies on joint development efforts Jointly develop and use training programs with other companies Provide or access services provided by one company to a group of other companies, such as an online banking application managed by one company on behalf of affiliated banks

[edit] Disadvantages

Extranets can be expensive to implement and maintain within an organization (e.g., hardware, software, employee training costs), if hosted internally rather than by an application service provider. Security of extranets can be a concern when hosting valuable or proprietary information.

Companies can use an extranet to:

Exchange large volumes of data using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Share product catalogs exclusively with wholesalers or those "in the trade" Collaborate with other companies on joint development efforts Jointly develop and use training programs with other companies Provide or access services provided by one company to a group of other companies, such as an online banking application managed by one company on behalf of affiliated banks Share news of common interest exclusively with partner companies

An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet Protocol technology to securely share any part of an organization's information or network operating system within that organization. The term is used in contrast to internet, a network between organizations, and instead refers to a network within an organization. Sometimes the term refers only to the organization's internal website, but may be a more extensive part of the organization's information technology infrastructure. It may host multiple private websites and constitute an important component and focal point of internal communication and collaboration.

Uses
Increasingly, intranets are being used to deliver tools and applications, e.g., collaboration (to facilitate working in groups and teleconferencing) or sophisticated corporate directories, sales and customer relationship management tools, project management etc., to advance productivity. Intranets are also being used as corporate culture-change platforms. For example, large numbers of employees discussing key issues in an intranet forum application could lead to new ideas in management, productivity, quality, and other corporate issues. In large intranets, website traffic is often similar to public website traffic and can be better understood by using web metrics software to track overall activity. User surveys also improve intranet website effectiveness. Larger businesses allow users within their intranet to access public internet through firewall servers. They have the ability to screen messages coming and going keeping security intact. When part of an intranet is made accessible to customers and others outside the business, that part becomes part of an extranet. Businesses can send private messages through the public network, using special encryption/decryption and other security safeguards to connect one part of their intranet to another. Intranet user-experience, editorial, and technology teams work together to produce in-house sites. Most commonly, intranets are managed by the communications, HR or CIO departments of large organizations, or some combination of these. Because of the scope and variety of content and the number of system interfaces, intranets of many organizations are much more complex than their respective public websites. Intranets and their use are growing rapidly. According to the Intranet design annual 2007 from Nielsen Norman Group, the number of pages on participants' intranets averaged 200,000 over the years 2001 to 2003 and has grown to an average of 6 million pages over 20052007.[2]

[edit] Benefits

Workforce productivity: Intranets can help users to locate and view information faster and use applications relevant to their roles and responsibilities. With the help of a web browser interface, users can access data held in any database the organization wants to make available, anytime and - subject to security provisions - from anywhere within the company workstations, increasing employees' ability to perform their jobs faster, more accurately, and with confidence that they have the right information. It also helps to improve the services provided to the users. Time: Intranets allow organizations to distribute information to employees on an as-needed basis; Employees may link to relevant information at their convenience, rather than being distracted indiscriminately by electronic mail. Communication: Intranets can serve as powerful tools for communication within an organization, vertically and horizontally. From a communications standpoint, intranets are useful to communicate strategic initiatives that

have a global reach throughout the organization. The type of information that can easily be conveyed is the purpose of the initiative and what the initiative is aiming to achieve, who is driving the initiative, results achieved to date, and who to speak to for more information. By providing this information on the intranet, staff have the opportunity to keep up-to-date with the strategic focus of the organization. Some examples of communication would be chat, email, and or blogs. A great real world example of where an intranet helped a company communicate is when Nestle had a number of food processing plants in Scandinavia. Their central support system had to deal with a number of queries every day.[3] When Nestle decided to invest in an intranet, they quickly realized the savings. McGovern says the savings from the reduction in query calls was substantially greater than the investment in the intranet. Web publishing allows cumbersome corporate knowledge to be maintained and easily accessed throughout the company using hypermedia and Web technologies. Examples include: employee manuals, benefits documents, company policies, business standards, newsfeeds, and even training, can be accessed using common Internet standards (Acrobat files, Flash files, CGI applications). Because each business unit can update the online copy of a document, the most recent version is usually available to employees using the intranet. Business operations and management: Intranets are also being used as a platform for developing and deploying applications to support business operations and decisions across the internetworked enterprise. Cost-effective: Users can view information and data via web-browser rather than maintaining physical documents such as procedure manuals, internal phone list and requisition forms. This can potentially save the business money on printing, duplicating documents, and the environment as well as document maintenance overhead. For example, Peoplesoft "derived significant cost savings by shifting HR processes to the intranet".[3] McGovern goes on to say the manual cost of enrolling in benefits was found to be USD109.48 per enrollment. "Shifting this process to the intranet reduced the cost per enrollment to $21.79; a saving of 80 percent". Another company that saved money on expense reports was Cisco. "In 1996, Cisco processed 54,000 reports and the amount of dollars processed was USD19 million".[3] Enhance collaboration: Information is easily accessible by all authorised users, which enables teamwork. Cross-platform capability: Standards-compliant web browsers are available for Windows, Mac, and UNIX. Built for one audience: Many companies dictate computer specifications which, in turn, may allow Intranet developers to write applications that only have to work on one browser (no cross-browser compatibility issues). Being able to specifically address your "viewer" is a great advantage. Since Intranets are user-specific (requiring database/network authentication prior to access), you know exactly who you are interfacing with and can personalize your Intranet based on role (job title, department) or individual ("Congratulations Jane, on your 3rd year with our company!"). Promote common corporate culture: Every user has the ability to view the same information within the Intranet.

Immediate updates: When dealing with the public in any capacity, laws, specifications, and parameters can change. Intranets make it possible to provide your audience with "live" changes so they are kept up-to-date, which can limit a company's liability. Supports a distributed computing architecture: The intranet can also be linked to a companys management information system, for example a time keeping system.

Ethernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks (LAN). The name came from the physical concept of the ether. It defines a number of wiring and signaling standards for the Physical Layer of the OSI networking model as well as a common addressing format and Media Access Control at the Data Link Layer. Ethernet is standardized as IEEE 802.3. The combination of the twisted pair versions of Ethernet for connecting end systems to the network, along with the fiber optic versions for site backbones, is the most widespread wired LAN technology. It has been used from around 1980[1] to the present, largely replacing competing LAN standards such as token ring, FDDI, and ARCNET. An Ethernet LAN typically uses coaxial cable or special grades of twisted pair wires. Ethernet is also used in wireless LANs. The most commonly installed Ethernet systems are called 10BASET and provide transmission speeds up to 10 Mbps. Devices are connected to the cable and compete for access using a Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD ) protocol.

Repeaters and hubs

Main article: Ethernet hub

For signal degradation and timing reasons, coaxial Ethernet segments had a restricted size. Somewhat larger networks could be built by using an Ethernet repeater. Initial repeaters had only 2 ports, but they gave way to 4, 6, 8, and more ports. People recognized the advantages of cabling in a star topology, primarily that a fault in one of the legs affects operation of only the stations attached to that leg.[citation needed]

A twisted pair Cat-3 or Cat-5 cable is used to connect 10BASE-T Ethernet

Ethernet on unshielded twisted-pair cables (UTP), beginning with StarLAN and continuing with 10BASE-T, was designed for point-to-point links only, and all termination was built into the device. This changed repeaters from a specialist device used at the center of large networks to a device that every twisted pair-based network with more than two machines had to use. The tree structure that resulted from this made Ethernet networks more reliable by preventing faults with one peer or its associated cable from affecting other devices on the network.[note 8] Despite the physical star topology, repeater based Ethernet networks still use half-duplex and CSMA/CD, with only minimal activity by the repeater, primarily the Collision Enforcement signal, in dealing with packet collisions. Every packet is sent to every port on the repeater, so bandwidth and security problems are not addressed. The total throughput of the repeater is limited to that of a single link, and all links must operate at the same speed.

[edit] Bridging and switching

Main articles: Ethernet switch and Bridging (networking)

While repeaters could isolate some aspects of Ethernet segments, such as cable breakages, they still forwarded all traffic to all Ethernet devices. This created practical limits on how many machines could communicate on an Ethernet network. The entire network was one collision domain, and all hosts had to be able to detect collisions anywhere on the network. This limited the number of repeaters between the farthest nodes. Segments joined by repeaters had to all operate at the same speed, making phased-in upgrades impossible. To alleviate these problems, bridging was created to communicate at the data link layer while isolating the physical layer. With bridging, only well-formed Ethernet packets are forwarded from one Ethernet segment to another; collisions and packet errors are isolated. Prior to discovery of network devices on the different segments, Ethernet bridges (and switches) work somewhat like Ethernet repeaters, passing all traffic between segments. However, as the bridge discovers the addresses associated with each port, it forwards network traffic only to the necessary segments, improving overall performance. Broadcast traffic is still forwarded to all network segments. Bridges also overcame the limits on total segments between two hosts and allowed the mixing of speeds, both of which became very important with the introduction of Fast Ethernet. Early bridges examined each packet one by one using software on a CPU, and some of them were significantly slower than repeaters at forwarding traffic, especially when handling many ports at the same time.[citation needed] This was in part because the entire Ethernet packet would be read into a buffer, the destination address compared with an internal table of known MAC addresses, and a decision made as to whether to drop the packet or forward it to another or all segments.

In 1989, the networking company Kalpana introduced their EtherSwitch, the first Ethernet switch.[note 9] This worked somewhat differently from an Ethernet bridge, in that only the header of the incoming packet would be examined before it was either dropped or forwarded to another segment. This greatly reduced the forwarding latency and the processing load on the network device. One drawback of this cut-through switching method was that packets that had been corrupted would still be propagated through the network, so a jabbering station could continue to disrupt the entire network. The eventual remedy for this was a return to the original store and forward approach of bridging, where the packet would be read into a buffer on the switch in its entirety, verified against its checksum and then forwarded, but using more powerful applicationspecific integrated circuits. Hence, the bridging is then done in hardware, allowing packets to be forwarded at full wire speed. When a twisted pair or fiber link segment is used and neither end is connected to a repeater, fullduplex Ethernet becomes possible over that segment. In full-duplex mode, both devices can transmit and receive to and from each other at the same time, and there is no collision domain. This doubles the aggregate bandwidth of the link and is sometimes advertised as double the link speed (e.g., 200 Mbit/s).[note 10] The elimination of the collision domain for these connections also means that all the link's bandwidth can be used by the two devices on that segment and that segment length is not limited by the need for correct collision detection. Since packets are typically delivered only to the port they are intended for, traffic on a switched Ethernet is less public than on shared-medium Ethernet. Despite this, switched Ethernet should still be regarded as an insecure network technology, because it is easy to subvert switched Ethernet systems by means such as ARP spoofing and MAC flooding. The bandwidth advantages, the slightly better isolation of devices from each other, the ability to easily mix different speeds of devices and the elimination of the chaining limits inherent in nonswitched Ethernet have made switched Ethernet the dominant network technology.[17]

[edit] Advanced networking

Simple switched Ethernet networks, while a great improvement over repeater-based Ethernet, suffer from single points of failure, attacks that trick switches or hosts into sending data to a machine even if it is not intended for it, scalability and security issues with regard to broadcast radiation and multicast traffic, and bandwidth choke points where a lot of traffic is forced down a single link.[citation needed] Advanced networking features in switches and routers combat these issues through a number of means including spanning-tree protocol to maintain the active links of the network as a tree while allowing physical loops for redundancy, port security and protection features such as MAC lock down and broadcast radiation filtering, virtual LANs to keep different classes of users separate while using the same physical infrastructure, multilayer switching to route between different classes and link aggregation to add bandwidth to overloaded links and to provide some measure of redundancy.

[edit] Varieties of Ethernet

Main article: Ethernet physical layer

The Ethernet physical layer evolved over a considerable time span and encompasses quite a few physical media interfaces and several magnitudes of speed. The most common forms used are 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, and 1000BASE-T. All three utilize Category 5 cables and 8P8C modular connectors. They run at 10 Mbit/s, 100 Mbit/s, and 1 Gbit/s, respectively. Fiber optic variants of Ethernet offer high performance, electrical isolation and distance (up to tens of kilometers with some versions). In general, network protocol stack software will work similarly on all varieties.

An object database (also object-oriented database) is a database model in which information is represented in the form of objects as used in object-oriented programming.

Example of an object-oriented model.[1] Object databases are a niche field within the broader DBMS market dominated by relational database management systems (RDBMS). Object databases have been considered since the early 1980s and 1990s but they have made little impact on mainstream commercial data processing, though there is some usage in specialized areas.

Advantages and disadvantages

This section may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk

page. (October 2008)

The main benefit of creating a database with objects as data is speed. OODBMS are faster than relational DBMS because data isnt stored in relational rows and columns but as objects[8]. Objects have a many to many relationship and are accessed by the use of pointers. Pointers are linked to objects to establish relationships. Another benefit of OODBMS is that it can be programmed with small procedural differences without affecting the entire system[9]. This is most helpful for those organizations that have data relationships that arent entirely clear or need to change these relations to satisfy the new business requirements. Benchmarks between OODBMSs and RDBMSs have shown that an OODBMS can be clearly superior for certain kinds of tasks. The main reason for this is that many operations are performed using navigational rather than declarative interfaces, and navigational access to data is usually implemented very efficiently by following pointers. Compared to relational databases another major advantage of OODBMSs is that they do not need any object relational mapping layer and object marshaling to map the application object model to the database object model. In RDBMS, this mapping is also source of the impedance mismatch, which does not occur when using OODBMS. Avoiding this layer also improves performance and saves effort for implementation and maintenance. Critics of navigational database-based technologies like ODBMS suggest that pointer-based techniques are optimized for very specific "search routes" or viewpoints; for general-purpose queries on the same information, pointer-based techniques will tend to be slower and more difficult to formulate than relational. Thus, navigation appears to simplify specific known uses at the expense of general, unforeseen, and varied future uses.[citation needed] However, with suitable language support, direct object references may be maintained in addition to normalised, indexed aggregations, allowing both kinds of access; furthermore, a persistent language may index aggregations on whatever its content elements return from a call to some arbitrary object access method, rather than only on attribute value, which allows a query to 'drill down' into complex data structures. Other things that work against ODBMS seem to be the lack of interoperability with a great number of tools/features that are taken for granted in the SQL world, including but not limited to industry standard connectivity, reporting tools, OLAP tools, and backup and recovery standards. [citation needed] Additionally, object databases lack a formal mathematical foundation, unlike the relational model, and this in turn leads to weaknesses in their query support. However, this objection is offset by the fact that some ODBMSs fully support SQL in addition to navigational access, e.g. Objectivity/SQL++, Matisse, and InterSystems CACH. Effective use may require compromises to keep both paradigms in sync. In fact there is an intrinsic tension between the notion of encapsulation, which hides data and makes it available only through a published set of interface methods, and the assumption underlying much database technology, which is that data should be accessible to queries based on data content rather than predefined access paths. Database-centric thinking tends to view the

world through a declarative and attribute-driven viewpoint, while OOP tends to view the world through a behavioral viewpoint, maintaining entity-identity independently of changing attributes. This is one of the many impedance mismatch issues surrounding OOP and databases. Although some commentators have written off object database technology as a failure, the essential arguments in its favor remain valid, and attempts to integrate database functionality more closely into object programming languages continue in both the research and the industrial communities.[citation

A distributed database management system ('DDBMS') is a software system that permits the management of a distributed database and makes the distribution transparent to the users. A distributed database is a collection of multiple, logically interrelated databases distributed over a computer network. Sometimes "distributed database system" is used to refer jointly to the distributed database and the distributed DBMS.

[edit] Overview
Distributed database management systems is a software for managing databases stored on multiple computers in a network. A distributed database is a set of databases stored on multiple computers that typically appears to applications on a single database. Consequently, an application can simultaneously access and modify the data in several databases in a network. DDBMS is specially developed for heterogeneous database platforms, focusing mainly on heterogeneous database management systems (HDBMS).

Centralized Systems: A modern, general-purpose computer system consists of one to a few CPUs & a number of device controllers that are connected through a common bus that provides access to shared memory. The CPUs have local cache memories that store local copies of parts of the memory, to speed up access to data. Each device controller is in charge of a specific type of device (for example, a disk drive, an audio device, or a video display). The CPUs & the device controllers can execute concurrently, competing for memory access. Cache memory reduces the contention for memory access, since it reduces the number of times that the CPU needs to access shared memory. In a distributed database system, the database is stored on several computers. The computers in a distributed system communicate with one another through various communication media, such as high-speed networks or telephone lines. They do not share main memory or disks. The computers in a distributed system may vary in size & function, ranging from workstations up to mainframe systems.

The main difference between centralized & distributed databases is that the distributed databases are typically geographically separated, are separately administered, & have slower interconnection. Also in distributed databases we differentiate between local & global transactions. A local transaction is one that accesses data only from sites where the transaction originated. A global transaction, on the other hand, is one that either accesses data in a site different from the one at which the transaction was initiated, or accessed data in several different sites.

Advantages of distributed databases

Management of distributed data with different levels of transparency. Increase reliability and availability. Easier expansion. Reflects organizational structure database fragments are located in the departments they relate to. Local autonomy a department can control the data about them (as they are the ones familiar with it.) Protection of valuable data if there were ever a catastrophic event such as a fire, all of the data would not be in one place, but distributed in multiple locations. Improved performance data is located near the site of greatest demand, and the database systems themselves are parallelized, allowing load on the databases to be balanced among servers. (A high load on one module of the database won't affect other modules of the database in a distributed database.) Economics it costs less to create a network of smaller computers with the power of a single large computer. Modularity systems can be modified, added and removed from the distributed database without affecting other modules (systems). Reliable transactions - Due to replication of database. Hardware, Operating System, Network, Fragmentation, DBMS, Replication and Location Independence. Continuous operation... Distributed Query processing. Distributed Transaction management.

Single site failure does not affect performance of system. All transactions follow A.C.I.D. property: a-atomicity, the transaction takes place as whole or not at all; c-consistency, maps one consistent DB state to another; i-isolation, each transaction sees a consistent DB; d-durability, the results of a transaction must survive system failures. The Merge Replication Method used to consolidate the data between databases.

[edit] Disadvantages of distributed databases

Complexity extra work must be done by the DBAs to ensure that the distributed nature of the system is transparent. Extra work must also be done

to maintain multiple disparate systems, instead of one big one. Extra database design work must also be done to account for the disconnected nature of the database for example, joins become prohibitively expensive when performed across multiple systems. Economics increased complexity and a more extensive infrastructure means extra labour costs. Security remote database fragments must be secured, and they are not centralized so the remote sites must be secured as well. The infrastructure must also be secured (e.g., by encrypting the network links between remote sites). Difficult to maintain integrity in a distributed database, enforcing integrity over a network may require too much of the network's resources to be feasible. Inexperience distributed databases are difficult to work with, and as a young field there is not much readily available experience on proper practice. Lack of standards there are no tools or methodologies yet to help users convert a centralized DBMS into a distributed DBMS. Database design more complex besides of the normal difficulties, the design of a distributed database has to consider fragmentation of data, allocation of fragments to specific sites and data replication. Additional software is required. Operating System should support distributed environment. Concurrency control: it is a major issue. It is solved by locking and timestamping.

Banking Example Using distributed database technology, a bank may implement their database system on a number of separate computer systems rather than a single, centralized mainframe. The computer systems may be located at each local branch office: for example, Amritsar, Patiala, and Qadian. A network linking the computer will enable the branches to communicate with each other, and DDBMS will enable them to access data stored at another branch office. Thus, a client living in Amritsar can also check his/her account during the stay in Patiala or Qadian Introduction A major motivation behind the development of database systems is the desire to integrate the operational data of an organization and to provide controlled access to the data. Although integration and controlled access may imply centralization, this is not the intention. In fact, the development of computer networks promotes a decentralized mode of work. This decentralized approach mirrors the organizational structure of many companies, which are logically distributed into divisions,

departments, projects, and so on, and physically distributed into offices, plants, factories, where each unit maintains its own operational data. The sharing ability of the data and the efficiency of data access should be improved by the development of a distributed database system that reflects this organizational structure, makes the data in all units accessible, and stores data proximate to the location where it is most frequently used.