Guideline questions

1. What is a distributed database? What does the distributed database differ from the
traditional (centralised) database?
2. Analyse the benefits and problems of distributed database systems?
3. Explain the simple framework of distributed database systems?
4. What are the differences between global and local database catalogue?
5. What are the differences between global and local query optimisations?
6. What is the serial history of transactions? Why do we need the serialisable history instead
of serial history?
7. Give the transactions as following table:

T1:Read(z) T2:Write(z) T3:Read(z)

Write(z) Write(x) Read(x)
Read(x) Read(y) Read(y)
Commit Commit Commit
Construct serial histories and their serialisable histories.
8. What is the two-phase locking mechanism? How is this mechanism implemented in the
distributed environment?
9. How can the time-stamp solve the problem of concurrent transactions?
10. Present the deadlock avoidance algorithms using time-stamps in the distributed
environment?
11. Compare and contrast the centralised and distributed deadlock detection using the wait-
for graph?
12. What is the fragmentation of a relation (table)? What are the benefits of relation
fragmentation?
13. What are the criteria for vertical and horizontal fragmentations?
14. What is the minimal and complete set of simple predicates given a relation R?
15. What is the attribute affinity, given a relation R? Compute the affinity matrix given a set of
query {q1,..,q4} and attributes {A1,...,A4} at a system composed of three sites {S1,...,S3} as
follows:

A1 A2 A3 A4
q1 1 0 1 0
q2 0 0 1 1
q3 0 0 1 1
q4 0 0 1 1
 S1 S2 S3
q1 15 20 10
q2 5 0 0
q3 25 25 25
q4 3 0 0

16. Given the affinity matrix, find the clustered affinity matrix?

17. Why do we need the logging? State basic logging strategies?

18. What are the basic operations to restore the consistency of the database?
19. What are the methods being used in out-place logging?
20. Explain the basic recovery strategies?
21. Explain the two-phase commit protocol?
22. What are the problems of the two-phase commit protocol?
23. What is the main difference of the mobile database from the distributed database?
Describe a scenario where the mobile database can be applied?
24. Compare and contrast location-dependent and location-independent data?
25. What are the possible modes for processing a transaction when the mobile
communication is involved?
26. Identify the possible components involved in a transaction of the mobile database?
27. How can a transaction be processed in mobile database?
28. Compare two methods to maintain the communication between the mobile unit and its
coordinator in processing a transaction?
29. What is the pro-motion model of executing a transaction in mobile databse?