files from the file-server when necessary, as illustrated in Figure 2.11. In this way, the
file-server acts simply as a shared hard disk drive. The DBMS on each workstation
sends requests to the file-server for all data that the DBMS requires that is stored on disk.
This approach can generate a significant amount of network traffic, which can lead to
performance problems. For example, consider a user request that requires the names of
staff who work in the branch at 163 Main St. We can express this request in SQL (see
Chapter 5) as:
SELECT fName, lName
FROM Branch b, Staff s
WHERE b.branchNos.branchNoAND b.street‘163 Main St’;
As the file-server has no knowledge of SQL, the DBMS has to request the files corresponding
to the Branch and Staff relations from the file-server, rather than just the staff
names that satisfy the query.
The file-server architecture, therefore, has three main disadvantages:
(1) There is a large amount of network traffic.
(2) A full copy of the DBMS is required on each workstation.
(3) Concurrency, recovery, and integrity control are more complex because there can be
multiple DBMSs accessing the same files.