| Monitoring Database |
| Database Machine definition |
| Basically, a database machine is a machine which incorporates some of the following: |
- Special hardware for DBMS functions
- Storage devices with hardware for associative addressing
- CPU with micro coded DBMS operations
- Any special purpose hardware/software intended to make a DBMS faster
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| Database Machine Existence |
| Although the idea of using a special purpose database machine to improve performance of a relational DBMS is good in principle, database users have been slow to embrace the idea. The penalty paid for using some form of a database machine, whether a backend machine, associative disk, or other special hardware is the hgh cost and also the fact that the extra equipment cannot be used for any other general purpose computing. Users have tended to be reluctant to invest in special purpose equipment which cannot be applied to other computing tasks. Thus instead of installing some form of database machine, most users have preferred to expand their database to a distributed database but have the nodes physically close together. This approach has the advantage of requiring extra equipment which is general purpose and can thus be used for other applications besides database ones. |
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| Monitoring database performance |
| The DBA is responsible for organizing the system so as to get the performance that is "best for the system" and for making the appropriate adjustments as user requirements change. To help the DBA in this task, certain database utilities and tools may be used. |
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| Database machine overview |
There are many definitions of what is a database machine and it is many things to many people. Basically it is anything to make a DBMS perform faster using an approach of off-loading the processing. A variety of approaches to doing this have been taken including some degrees of parallelism.
Although there are pros and cons to database machines the existence of database machines has not yet been fully justified. |
