Download Chapter 9 Question 4 a. A file server device operates on individual

Chapter 9
Question 4
a. A file server device operates on individual files and is shared on each computer on the LAN using it. A
database server is instead a central server designed to perform all operations on the data in the
database itself, including access, storage, logic, and security. A three-tier architecture includes another
server tasked with a different function, often the application that both the database server and clients
interact with.
b. Client/server computing distributes tasks involved in an application among specialized systems,
usually on different computers that can be designed or tuned to their separate tasks. A mainframe
computer may be very powerful but is not specialized as it will house the entirety of important and
complex applications, and also run all tasks for a given application instead of delegating.
c. A fat client application on the client system is responsible for the bulk of presentation, application,
and even some DBMS logic functions, leaving comparatively little to the server side of the process. A
thin client will handle much less, often just the presentation logic and maybe some application logic, and
leaves most of the processing up to the server.
d. ODBC, the Open Database Connectivity standard, is an API for applications to be able to access and
process databases using SQL regardless of the RDBMS being used, and is language independent. JDBC,
the Java Database Connectivity API is similar in design and principle to the ODBC, but is designed
specifically for the Java programming language.
Question 6
Moving the database management system to a separate server can give performance gains to the actual
application, and even the management software, as the server can be given more power for its specific
task and the most unrelated processing jobs are given their own space to run. This isn’t necessarily an
ideal situation very small databases as no tangible benefits may be gained from a system running the
entire application and database without trouble.
Question 7
Adding another layer to the client/server model in the form of another server can further aid the
performance and flexibility of the system. This server may house the application and allow a very thin
client implementation on the client system, or provide space for a related but different type of database
and lighten the load on the current server. Again, the scalability of this model may not work for
personal, departmental, or otherwise small database applications and may just drain resources while
gaining no performance. Usually, though, abstracting out different types of job to different servers,
locations, and resources can increase the performance and stability of the system over all.