Physical Database Design

6.4 Pros and Cons of Shared Nothing 103

ited data skew is a good design practice. There will be more discussion on best practices

for partitioning selection when we discuss skew and collocation later in the chapter.

6.4 Pros and Cons of Shared Nothing

In his short paper on shared nothing, Michael Stonebraker [1986] compared the bene-

fits and drawbacks of shared-nothing architectures, which he summarized in a table

comparing attributes. The table is reproduced here as Table 6.1. In this table attributes

are ranked 1, 2, or 3, where 1 is superior.

The main observations here are the improved bandwidth and scalability and the

reduced susceptibility to critical sections. In fact, Stonebraker’s observations have borne

out in practice with the overwhelming ...