Parallel Processing Hardware Options

Parallel Processing Hardware Options: In a parallel processing environment. you will find these characteristics: multiple CPUs. memory modules, one or snore server nOdes. and high-speed communication links between interconnected nodes. Essentially. you can choose from three architectural options. Figure 3-6 indicates the three options and their comparative merits. Please noic the advantages and disadvantages so that you may choose the proper option for your data warehouse.

Parallel Processing Software Implementation: You may choose the appropriate parallel processing hardware configuration for your data warehouse. Hardware alone would be worthless if the operating system and the database software cannot make use of the parallel features of the hardware. You will have to ensure that the software can allocate units of a larger task to the hardware components appropriately.

Parallel processing software must be capable of performing' the following steps:

• Analyzing a large task to identify independent units that can be executed in parallel
• Identifying which of the smaller units must he executed one after the other
• Executing the independent units in parallel and the dependent units in the proper sequence • Collecting. collecting and consolidating the results returned by the smaller units.

Database vendors usually provide two options Air parallel processing: -paral/el server option and parallel query option. You may purchase each option separately. Depending on the provisions made by the database vendors, these options may be used %vith one or more of the parallel hardware configurations. The parallel server option allows each hardware node to have its own separate database instance, and enables all database instances to access a .common sct of underlying data-base files. The parallel query option supports key operations such as query processing, data load-ing, and index creation in be parallelized.