Architectural Features of WCRC - A Data Base Computer

Abstract

<p>Several data base machine architectures have been proposed in the past few years. The next generation of these machines must support different data models on the same physical data simultaneously as envisaged in the ANSI/X3/SPARC report or the coexistence model.</p> <p>This thesis presents the architectural features of one such data base machine called Well Connected Relational Computer (WCRC). The overall architecture and the facilities to the user as well as the DBA have been described. A framework for the conceptual level and detailed design of the internal level are reported. The algorithms for schema conversion and view translation have been developed. The conceptual level language, WCRL is extended to accommodate data definition, data manipulation and storage definition facilities. A high level language, DBAL, is developed for the DBA. Two binary storage structures (Pseudo Canonical Partitions (PCP's - Options I and II) have been reported for storing the data at the internal level. They radically differ from the conventional n-ary relational storage structure. A machine oriented language (WCRML) is developed to directly execute the data base instructions in hardware on the PCP storage structures. The basic hardware organization of the internal level along with special hardware units for some data base functions such as join and sort have been reported. Finally, a performance evaluation of WCRC storage structures has been presented. The results indicate that WCRC requires lesser storage and offers faster query response time when compared to architectures based on n-ary relation storage.</p>