Distributed Databases

• One active field of research is distributed databases.
• Distribution has a lot of real advantages. For example:
  • People can access distributed databases more rapidly.
  • You can save in a 32 bit operating system instead of 64.
  • You can align the DB the way you want, so it can be more efficient (Datacubes).
  • You can update more efficiently.
• Unfortunately, this comes with a lot of disadvantages.
• Foremost is what happens when different copies disagree.
• Note that you can distribute by making close copies, by breaking the database into pieces, or any place in between.