Distributed Oracle Data Warehouses Oracle Tips  by Burleson Consulting

The Data Warehouse Development Life Cycle

Distributed Oracle Data Warehouses

Types Of Database Distribution

As mentioned earlier, distributed database means something different to different database designers. Furthermore, there are several flavors of distributed databases. Each type of database has unique characteristics and unique solutions. By taking a careful look at each type of distributed database, we can shed some light on the major issues of distributed databases. Oracle supports all of the following types of distributed databases and there is practically no type of data distribution that cannot be implemented with Oracle.

Geographical Distribution (Horizontal Distribution)

Geographical distribution refers to several databases that run under the control of different processors, as shown in Figure 9.1. In terms of database distribution, it is irrelevant whether the databases are separated by several inches or several thousand miles. In fact, it is possible to have a distributed database architecture within a single machine, as in the case of an SMP system with a quadratic processor. Numerous Unix processors have several CPUs contained within the box, and separate database systems can be run on each half of the CPU. Each database enjoys the benefit of an isolated processor, but distributed database communication such as Oracle’s SQL*Net are required to make the processors communicate with each other.

Figure 9.1 Geographically distributed databases.

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This is an excerpt from "High Performance Data Warehousing", copyright 1997.

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