Abdelguerfi and Wong present the latest techniques in parallel relational databases illustrating high-performance achievements in parallel database systems. The text is st5ructured according to the overall architecture of a parallel database system presenting various techniques that may be adopted to the design of parallel database software and hardware execution environments. These techniques can directly or indirectly lead to high-performance parallel database implementation.

The book's main focus follows the authors' engineering model:

• A survey of parallel query optimization techniques for requests involving multi-way joins
• A new technique for a join operation that can be adopted in the local optimization stage
• A framework for recovery in parallel database systems using the ACTA formalism
• The architectural details of NCR's new Petabyte multimedia database system
• A description of the Super Database Computer (SDC-II)
• A case study for a shared-nothing parallel database server that analyzes and compares the effectiveness of five data placement techniques