Tradeoffs in distributed databases

Abstract

In a distributed database data is spread throughout the network into separated nodes with different DBMS systems (Date, 2000). According to CAP-theorem three database properties — consistency, availability and partition tolerance cannot be achieved simultaneously in distributed database systems. Two of these properties can be achieved but not all three at the same time (Brewer, 2000). Since this theorem there has been some development in network infrastructure. Also new methods to achieve consistency in distributed databases has emerged. This paper discusses trade-offs in distributed databases.