Advantages of Distributed database

Distributed databases basically provide us the advantages of distributed computing to the database management domain. Basically, we can define a Distributed database as a collection of multiple interrelated databases distributed over a computer network and a distributed database management system as a software system that basically manages a distributed database while making the distribution transparent to the user. 

Distributed database management basically proposed for the various reason from organizational decentralization and economical processing to greater autonomy. Some of these advantages are as follows: 

1. Management of data with different level of transparency - 
Ideally, a database should be distribution transparent in the sense of hiding the details of where each file is physically stored within the system. The following types of transparencies are basically possible in the distributed database system:

• Network transparency: 
  This basically refers to the freedom for the user from the operational details of the network. These are of two types Location and naming transparency.
• Replication transparencies: 
  It basically made user unaware of the existence of copies as we know that copies of data may be stored at multiple sites for better availability performance and reliability.
• Fragmentation transparency: 
  It basically made user unaware about the existence of fragments it may be the vertical fragment or horizontal fragmentation.

2. Increased Reliability and availability - 
Reliability is basically defined as the probability that a system is running at a certain time whereas Availability is defined as the probability that the system is continuously available during a time interval. When the data and DBMS software are distributed over several sites one site may fail while other sites continue to operate and we are not able to only access the data that exist at the failed site and this basically leads to improvement in reliability and availability. 

3. Easier Expansion - 
In a distributed environment expansion of the system in terms of adding more data, increasing database sizes or adding more processor is much easier. 

4. Improved Performance - 
We can achieve interquery and intraquery parallelism by executing multiple queries at different sites by breaking up a query into a number of subqueries that basically executes in parallel which basically leads to improvement in performance.

Distributed databases are computer databases that are spread across multiple physical locations, typically connected by a network. Here are some of the advantages of distributed databases:

1. Improved scalability: Distributed databases can be scaled horizontally by adding more nodes to the network. This allows for increased capacity and performance as data and user demand grow.
2.  Increased availability: Distributed databases can provide increased availability and uptime by distributing the data across multiple nodes. If one node goes down, the data can still be accessed from other nodes in the network.
3. Increased flexibility: Distributed databases can be more flexible than centralized databases, allowing data to be stored in a way that best suits the needs of the application or user.
4. Improved fault tolerance: Distributed databases can be designed with redundancy and failover mechanisms that allow the system to continue operating in the event of a node failure.
5. Improved security: Distributed databases can be more secure than centralized databases by implementing security measures at the network, node, and application levels.

  distributed databases provide several advantages over centralized databases, including improved scalability, availability, performance, flexibility, fault tolerance, and security. These advantages make distributed databases a popular choice for large-scale applications where data must be accessed by a large number of users or applications in a geographically dispersed manner

 Features of distributed databases include:

Scalability: Distributed databases can be easily scaled by adding more nodes to the system. This allows for the database to handle large volumes of data and high traffic loads.

Fault tolerance: Distributed databases are designed to be resilient to failures, which means that if one node fails, the database can continue to operate without interruption.

Data replication: Distributed databases often replicate data across multiple nodes to ensure data availability and reduce the risk of data loss.

Distributed query processing: Distributed databases can perform queries across multiple nodes, allowing for faster and more efficient data retrieval.

Data consistency: Distributed databases must ensure data consistency across all nodes. This can be achieved through various methods, such as using a consensus protocol or a distributed locking mechanism.

Location transparency: Distributed databases allow users to access data regardless of the location of the data or the user. This means that users can access the data they need from any node in the system.

Security: Distributed databases must ensure that data is secure and protected from unauthorized access. This can be achieved through various security mechanisms, such as encryption and access control.