Architecture of a Database System (Foundations and Trends

by Joseph M. Hellerstein, James Hamilton, Michael Stonebraker

Database Management Systems (DBMSs) are a ubiquitous and critical component of modern computing, and the result of decades of research and development in both academia and industry. Architecture of a Database System presents an architectural discussion of DBMS design principles, including process models, parallel architecture, storage system design, transaction system implementation, query processor and optimizer architectures, and typical shared components and utilities. Successful commercial and open-source systems are used as points of reference, particularly when multiple alternative designs have been adopted by different groups. Historically, DBMSs were among the earliest multi-user server systems to be developed, and thus pioneered many systems design techniques for scalability and reliability now in use in many other contexts. While many of the algorithms and abstractions used by a DBMS are textbook material, Architecture of a Database System addresses the systems design issues that make a DBMS work. Architecture of a Database System is an invaluable reference for database researchers and practitioners and for those in other areas of computing interested in the systems design techniques for scalability and reliability that originated in DBMS research and development.

Genres: Programming, Computer Science, Software, Architecture

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[f1yegor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm about to make a huge mistake - follow references in the book and hoping to read them.

[Thach Le · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book introduces how the database was implemented, how the data was organized, how the queried executed ... and explains why with advances and disadvantages of each approach.
Chapter 6: Transaction is the most interesting chapter to me, after reading it, I can understand clearly about ACID, Serializability (which I have some confuse about before).
The most important is after reading, I know how important learning data structure and algorithms are, when, and how they can be applied.

[Max Lybbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Available at http://db.cs.berkeley.edu/papers/fntd... (big PDF). Very interesting look at the implementation of databases, followed by lots of pointers on where to learn more.

I read it for the discussion on locking hierarchies, which has more "if you want to learn more" pointers than normal.

I was happy to learn that database servers need to implement a form of Dijkstra's Bankers Algorithm; so contrary to Andrew S. Tannenbaum, that algorithm can, in fact, be applied in real life.

[Rafael Araújo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written, with excellent information about database infrastructure. Concise, direct to the point and high value content. Helps to understand better how you can tune, configure and manage your databases at any level. Recommended for beginners or hard professionals.

[Gazimagomed · Rating 5 out of 5]

I definitely need to re-read it.

[Manzur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nevertheless this book is short, it can be considered as an encyclopedic reference on relational database systems. It contains the body knowledge of every aspect of the design of the RDBMS and should be considered as first point of contact into DB world. But as its quite short for a book -- it's more introduction into DB theory, however contains a lot of good references for further digging. Also, serves as a good complementary to the classical "System R" paper.