Oracle7 Server Distributed Systems Volume I: Distributed Data

The Database Server

A database client-server system is a subset of the client-server model. The machine on which the database resides is the database server. Typically, the database also holds stored procedures, event alerts and triggers. It also provides services, such as row-level locking, security, logging, recovery, concurrency management, among others. Other types of servers include file servers, mail servers, and name servers.

The database server allows many users to access data from a single location. However, this architecture can be extended to allow many users to access data from many databases, and it allows those databases to cooperate in maintaining consistency.

Oracle7 Server provides extensive server functionality. The simplicity of the client-server architecture allows clients to make requests that are routed to the appropriate server. These requests are in the form of transactions. Client transactions can be SQL or PL/SQL procedures and functions that access the individual databases and services.