Even the most powerful computers have finite processing and storage – eventually a database will exceed those limits. Thus, a distributed database is designed to spread the processing and storage of data across multiple machines. Such distribution introduces challenges for availability, concurrency, and joins when processing queries.

Learning Objectives

  • Compare and contrast centralized and distributed databases
  • Describe the techniques used by a distributed database management system (DBMS) for joins

How to Complete this Lesson

  1. Read Fundamentals of Database Management Systems Chapter 12: Client / Server Database and Distributed Database (45 minutes)
  2. Watch Centralized vs Distributed Databases (3 minutes)
  3. Watch Simple 2PC: Messaging Only (4 minutes)
  4. Recommended: Complete the optional homework on distributed databases (15 minutes)
  5. Continue working on the programming portion of the B+ tree assignment (120 minutes)
    • Implement the delete operation
    • Verify that at least a subset of the tests that include delete operations pass
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