Telecom databases are databases used in the operation of the telecom network and as parts of applications in the telecom network. The first telecom databases were Service Control Points (SCP) in Intelligent Networks. These provided mostly number translations for various services, such as Freephone. Also databases that keep track of the mobile phones (Home Location Registers, HLR) for mobile telecommunications were early starters. SCPs and HLRs are now becoming the platforms for service execution of telecommunication services. Other telecom databases are used for management of the network, especially for real-time charging information. Many information servers, such as Web Servers, Cache Servers, Mail Servers, File Servers are also becoming part of the telecom databases. These servers have in common that they all have to answer massive amounts of rather simple queries, that they have to be very reliable, and that they have requirements on short response times. Some of them also need lar...

Contents 1 Introduction 11 1.1 The Need for High Performance Databases . . . . . . . . 11 1.2 Conventional Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1.3 Distributed Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1.4 Multidatabases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 1.5 Data Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 1.6 Parallel Data Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 1.7 Database Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 1.8 Overview of Some Data Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 1.9 Current Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 1.10 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2 Properties of Structures for Servers 23 2.1 The Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 2.2 Scalability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 2.3 Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.4 Availabilit

A database for telecom applications must satisfy the same demanding requirements as the other components in the telecom network with respect to availability, scalability, and real-time performance. Unfortunately it is difficult to provide state-of-the-art realtime service without sacrificing the other. ClustRa is a parallel and distributed telecom DBMS designed as a careful balance between these requirements. The filosophy has been to provide sufficient real-time capabilities for telecom applications. This paper describes the architecture of ClustRa, its real-time features and a performace evaluation. 1 Introduction ClustRa is a telecom database management system [7]. It is built to meet the combined requirements from modern telecommunication applications like intelligent networks (IN) and mobile telephony. IN was introduced in the 80's to support new types of telecom services, e.g. terminal- (UPT) and service mobility, virtual private nets, and credit card calling. To achieve rapid d...