A proposed globally distributed federated database: a practical performance evaluation

Many organisations are now planning to move their operations from total reliance on centralised databases towards distributed environments which may involve the interoperability of a number of heterogeneous databases. This study looks at a particular case for an international financial institution, with the likely performance of a proposed globally distributed federated database being compared with the performance of the current centralised system. The performance model developed includes submodels for transaction structure and management, user workload and distributed heterogeneous databases. Simulations focus on response times for a particular class of credit control/deal entry transactions in the presence of a background load. The results demonstrate that the proposed federated database outperforms the current centralised system, and that this is achievable using currently available technology