ABSTRACT
In a traditional computing environment, an organization’s information is usually centralized in a particular location, or it may be fragmented across multiple locations. Within the Information Services component of the architecture, the isolation is achieved by maintaining two layers, a logical layer and a physical layer. Distributed information can be defined formally as “information that is physically separated between locations or platforms.” With client/server and netcentric computing, developers seek to isolate applications from knowledge of information location, information access methods, and information management products. The physical layer can be used within a netcentric architecture to isolate the detailed technical implementations of information. The distributed database management system promises a number of benefits for organizations, including the ability to expand a system more gracefully in an incremental fashion, local autonomy, increased availability and reliability of information, and increased efficiency and flexibility.
