Advantages and Disadvantages of Distributed Network

Recently we talked about the advantages and disadvantages of Decentralized

Annie Clain

• 2 min read
Advantages and Disadvantages of Distributed Network

Recently we talked about the advantages and disadvantages of Decentralized network.

Now is the time to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of a Distributed network.

Well, a lot of people often get confused between both, considering them as one. But, they’re not.

Distributed network is a set of databases located on more than one server, but communicate with one another to fulfil a mutual goal.

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Let’s Understand This With An Example!

A good example for this is a scenario, where a hypothetical home office database comprises the primary copy of all the information of the company, i.e. Master database.

Since this hypothetical firm is multi-national, its efficiency may require that a copy of the data needs to be distributed to each satellite office.

The efficiency may be mandated depending on the network speed running between the Home office and satellite locations.

As a Satellite office, even if the Home office is offline, then the hypothetical firm must determine how soon their Satellite offices must reach concurrency, i.e. where the databases contain the syncing data.

Also, it is to be determined how frequently the Satellite offices upload to the Home office their new and changed data.

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The Advantages of Distributed Network

  1. Even if a single database is lost, it doesn’t affect all the data.
  2. User interaction is majorly with a local database, which results in higher access speeds, faster reporting, and quicker queries.
  3. Cheaper operation results from taking the advantage of off-peak rates of communications between Satellite and Master databases syncing on scheduled access.
  4. The Satellite databases come with local changes until the Master database acknowledges that it has upgraded these changes. This results in preventing accidental loss of local data amid transmission.
  5. A major improvement in Master database performance, since it doesn’t need to deal with the Satellite database changes consistently. With this, you simply move your Satellite transactional load to a manageable schedule leave a lot of time for other operations.

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The Disadvantages of Distributed Network

  1. The Distributed database architecture is more demanding in the form of design, administration and troubleshooting.
  2. There are issues in accessing Satellite data Ad Hoc from the Master database, which is often done according to the scheduled syncs. Indeed, there is often a manual override where syncing can be made to occur.
  3. Many complex routines need to be developed to protect that data synchronization is working perfectly.
  4. Delays will exist between the Satellite and Master data footprints, where many reports generated by the Satellite database are not current with the Master’s data. This issue needs to be estimated amid the design of the sync frequency.

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Conclusion

So that was all about the merits and demerits of Distributed network. Knowing about the pros and cons helps to have a clear idea about our needs and where and how to implement the thing.

This is not the only way to implement this database network. There are other applications using Distributed network, besides the Master or Satellite databases.

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