fntdb07-architecture

Foundations and Trends inDatabasesVol.1,No.2(2007)141-2592007 J.M.Hellerstein,M.Stonebrakernowand J.HamiltonD0L:10.1561/1900000002the essence of knowledgeArchitecture of a Database SystemJoseph M.Hellerstein',Michael Stonebraker2and James Hamilton31 University of California,Berkeley,USA,hellerstein@cs.berkeley.edu2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology,USA3 Microsoft Research,USAAbstractDatabase Management Systems (DBMSs)are a ubiquitous and criticalcomponent of modern computing,and the result of decades of researchand development in both academia and industry.Historically,DBMSswere among the earliest multi-user server systems to be developed,andthus pioneered many systems design techniques for scalability and relia-bility now in use in many other contexts.While many of the algorithmsand abstractions used by a DBMS are textbook material,there has beenrelatively sparse coverage in the literature of the systems design issuesthat make a DBMS work.This paper presents an architectural dis-cussion of DBMS design principles,including process models,parallelarchitecture,storage system design,transaction system implementa-tion,query processor and optimizer architectures,and typical sharedcomponents and utilities.Successful commercial and open-source sys-tems are used as points of reference,particularly when multiple alter-native designs have been adopted by different groups.