Unit 1:

Transparencies in a
Distributed DBMS
Fig. 1(a) Centralized Database consisting of different relations
Fig. 1(b) A Distributed Application
Transparent Access
● Suppose we want to find out the names of all the employees who have
worked for over 12 months on a project. However, given the distributed nature
of this firm’s business, it is preferable, under these circumstances, to localize
data such that data about the employees in Waterloo office are stored in
Waterloo, those in the Boston office are stored in Boston, and so forth.
● Thus, what we are engaged in is a process where we partition each of the
relations and store each partition at a different site. This is known as
fragmentation.
● For a system to adequately deal with this type of query over a distributed,
fragmented and replicated database, it needs to be able to deal with a
number of different types of transparencies.
Transparencies in a distributed DBMS
● Transparency refers to separation of the higher-level semantics of a system from
lower-level implementation issues.
● In other words, a transparent system “hides” the implementation details from users.
● The advantage of a fully transparent DBMS is the high level of support that it
provides for the development of complex applications.
● It is obvious that we would like to make all DBMSs (centralized or distributed) fully
transparent.
● Fully transparent access means that the users can still pose the query as specified
above, without paying any attention to the fragmentation, location, or replication of data,
and let the system worry about resolving these issues.
● Fundamental issue is to provide data independence in the distributed environment.
Data Independence
● Data independence refers characteristic of being able to modify the schema at one
level of the database system without altering the schema at the next higher level.
 Logical data independence refers to the immunity of user applications to changes in
the logical structure (i.e., schema) of the database.
 Physical data independence, on the other hand, deals with hiding the details of the
storage structure from user applications.
Types of Transparencies
The distribution transparency consists of five classifications:
● Network (distribution) transparency
○ Location Transparency
○ Naming Transparency
● Replication transparency
● Fragmentation transparency
○ horizontal fragmentation: selection
○ vertical fragmentation: projection
Network (or Distribution) transparency
● Network transparency involves masking the network complexities involved in
communication between different nodes of the distributed system.
● Users and applications can interact with the DDBMS as if it were a single,
logical entity, even though the data might be spread across multiple locations.
● If a DDBMS exhibits distribution transparency, then the user does not need to
know the data is fragmented (fragmentation transparency) or the location of
data items (location transparency).
Location transparency
● Location transparency is the middle level in distribution transparency.
● Location transparency means that the command used to perform a task is
independent of both the location of the data and the system on which an
operation is carried out.
● The fact that the table or its fragments are stored at remote site in the
distributed database system, should be completely oblivious to the end user.
The address of the remote site(s) and the access mechanisms are completely
hidden.
● In order to incorporate location transparency, DDBMS should have access to
updated and accurate data dictionary and DDBMS directory which contains
the details of locations of data.
Naming transparency
● Naming transparency means that a unique name is provided for each object
in the database. In the absence of naming transparency, users are required to
embed the location name (or an identifier) as part of the object name.
Fragmentation transparency
● Fragmentation is the highest level of distribution transparency.
● Fragmentation transparency enables users to query upon any table as if it
were unfragmented. Thus, it hides the fact that the table the user is querying
on is actually a fragment or union of some fragments. It also conceals the fact
that the fragments are located at diverse sites.
● This is somewhat similar to users of SQL views, where the user may not know
that they are using a view of a table instead of the table itself.
Types of Fragmentation
● There are two general types of fragmentation alternatives.
● In one case, called horizontal fragmentation, a relation is partitioned into a
set of sub-relations each of which have a subset of the tuples (rows) of the
original relation.
● The second alternative is vertical fragmentation where each sub-relation is
defined on a subset of the attributes (columns) of the original relation.
Replication transparency
● Replication transparency ensures that replication of fragments are hidden
from the users. It enables users to query upon a table as if only a single copy
of the table exists.
● Replication transparency is associated with concurrency transparency and
failure transparency.
● Whenever a user updates a data item, the update is reflected in all the copies
of the table. However, this operation should not be known to the user. This is
concurrency transparency.
● Also, in case of failure of a site, the user can still proceed with his queries
using replicated copies without any knowledge of failure. This is failure
transparency.
Local mapping transparency
● The lowest level in distribution transparency.
● In this kind of transparency, a user needs to specify both fragment names and
the location of data items, taking into consideration in any replication that may
exists.
REFERENCES

1. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/distributed_dbms/
distributed_dbms_concepts.htm
2. Database Systems: A Practical Approach to Design Implementation and
Management 6th Global Edition, by Thomas Connolly and Carolyn Begg,
Pearson Publications.
3. Principles of Distributed Database Systems, M.T. Ozsu and P. Valduriez, 3rd
Edition, Prentice Hall.
4. https://sis.binus.ac.id/2021/03/10/transparencies-in-dbms/