A transputer based parallel database system.

A sophisticated database application generation environment known as DB4GL has been developed at Sheffield City Polytechnic. A unique feature of DB4GL is the object-oriented application model used to specify and generate database applications. Although DB4GL has many advanced and powerful features, such as a self-describing data dictionary and extensive integrity rule processing facilities; the system has not been designed for high performance in either the generation tools or the generated database applications. The Parallel-DB4GL (P-DB4GL) project represents an attempt to improve the performance of the generated database applications, by constructing a new concurrent implementation of DB4GL for execution on transputer-based parallel hardware. This thesis describes the DB4GL system as developed to the commencement of the P-DB4GL project. A prototype P-DB4GL system has been implemented that demonstrates how significant performance gains can be obtained from a concurrent implementation on transputer-based parallel hardware. Based on the successful results of this prototype system, designs for a fully functional multiprocessor P-DB4GL system are proposed. The details of this prototype and the fully functional designs are presented in this thesis. The thesis also provides an evaluation of the P-DB4GL project as a whole, and concludes with some suggestions for further research in the areas of parallel databases and object-oriented system implementation.