Geographic dispersion of organizations is not an entirely new concept. Large firms have connected major regional offices to their centralized databases using dedicated lines for years. The difference now is that geographic dispersion is taken to greater extremes to provide cost savings and improved contact with the firm's customers. Large ...

Prior to the popular acceptance of DDBMSs, corporations normally relied on centralized databases designed to serve very structured information requirements. These centralized databases had some characteristics in common. First, they ran on powerful and expensive hardware that could handle very large portions of a firm's data reliably. Second, they were ...