Final answer:
A Distributed Database Management System (DDBMS) manages a database that is spread across various locations, provides easy access to data, and ensures data consistency, fault tolerance, and security. It allows for data replication and fragmentation, and enhances the system's transparency to the user.
Step-by-step explanation:
The function of a Distributed Database Management System (DDBMS) is to manage a distributed database efficiently and provide various functionalities. A DDBMS ensures that the data distributed across different sites is easily accessible and provides data consistency. It supports database operations in a manner such that users perceive the database as a single entity. A DDBMS coordinates with the distributed database to process and handle queries, optimize data retrieval, and maintain data integrity and security across the network.
In a nutshell, the core function of a DDBMS is to manage the storage and retrieval of data that is distributed across different physical locations. The system achieves this through data replication and fragmentation, ensuring fault tolerance, and providing concurrency control, transaction management, and recovery from failures, while making the system's operation transparent to the end-users.