Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Parallel database systems: Open problems and new issues

  • Published:
Distributed and Parallel Databases Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Parallel database systems attempt to exploit recent multiprocessor computer architectures in order to build high-performance and high-availability database servers at a much lower price than equivalent mainframe computers. Although there are commercial SQL-based products, a number of open problems hamper the full exploitation of the capabilities of parallel systems. These problems touch on issues ranging from those of parallel processing to distributed database management. Furthermore, it is still an open issue to decide which of the various architectures among shared-memory, shared-disk, and shared-nothing, is best for database management under various conditions. Finally, there are new issues raised by the introduction of higher functionality such as knowledge-based or object-oriented capabilities within a parallel database system.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. R. Agrawal and H. Jagadish, “Multiprocessor transitive closure algorithms,” inInt. Symp. Databases in Parallel and Distributed Systems, Austin, Texas, 1988.

  2. W. Alexander and G. Copeland, “Process and dataflow control in distributed data-intensive systems,” inACM SIGMOD Int. Conf., Chicago, 1988.

  3. J. Andrade, M. Carges, and K. Kovach, “Building a transaction processing system on UNIX system,” inUnix Transaction Processing Workshop, Pittsburgh, 1989.

  4. Anon et al., “Measure of transaction processing power,”Datamation, April 1985.

  5. P. Apers et al., “Prisma/DB: a parallel main-memory relational DBMS,”IEEE Trans. Data Knowledge Engg. (to appear).

  6. M. Atkinson, “A vision of persistent systems,” inInt. Conf. Deductive and Object-Oriented Databases, Munich, 1991.

  7. E. Babb, “Implementing a relational database by means of specialized hardware,”ACM Trans. Database Systems, vol. 4, no. 1, 1979.

  8. F. Bancilhon and R. Ramakrishnan, “An amateur's introduction to recursive query processing strategies,” inACM SIGMOD Int. Conf. Management of Data, Washington, DC, 1986.

  9. B. Bergsten, M. Couprie, and P. Valduriez, “Prototyping DBS3, a shared-memory parallel database system,” inInt. Conf. Parallel and Distributed Information Systems, Miami, 1991.

  10. A. Bhide and M. Stonebraker, “Performance comparison of two architectures for fast transaction processing,” inInt. Conf. Data Engineering, Los Angeles, 1988.

  11. D. Bitton, D. DeWitt, and C. Turbyfill, “Benchmarking database systems: a systematic approach,” inInt. Conf. VLDB, Florence, Italy, 1983.

  12. H. Boral, W. Alexander, L. Clay, G. Copeland, S. Danforth, M. Franklin, B. Hart, M. Smith, and P. Valduriez, “Prototyping bubba, a highly parallel database system,”IEEE Trans. Knowledge Data Engg., vol. 2, no. 1, 1990.

  13. H. Boral and D.J. DeWitt, “Database machines: an idea whose time has passed? A critique of the future of database machines,” inInt. Workshop on Database Machines, Munich, 1983.

  14. A. Buchmann, M.T. Özsu, M. Hornick, D. Georgakopoulos, and F.A. Manola, “A transaction model for active distributed object systems,” in A. Elmagarmid (ed.), inTransaction Models for Advanced Database Applications, Morgan Kaufmann, 1992.

  15. F. Cacace, S. Ceri, and M. Houtsma, “A survey of parallel execution strategies for transitive closure and logic programs,” Technical Report No. 923, University of Twente, The Netherlands, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Special Issue on Next-Generation Database Systems,Comm. ACM, vol. 34, no. 10, 1991.

  17. F. Carino and P. Kostamaa, “Exegesis of DBC/1012 and P-90 — industrial supercomputer database machines,” inParallel Architectures and Languages Europe, Paris, 1992.

  18. R.G.G. Cattell and J. Skeen, “Object operations benchmark,”ACM Trans. Database Systems, vol. 17, no. 1, 1992.

  19. C. Chachaty, P. Borla-Salamet, and M. Ward, “An approach for the design of a parallel query language,” inParallel Architectures and Languages Europe, Paris, 1992.

  20. J. Cheng et al., “IBM database 2 performance: design, implementation and tuning,”IBM Syst. J., vol. 23, no. 2, 1984.

  21. G. Copeland, W. Alexander, E. Boughter, and T. Keller, “Data placement in Bubba,” inACM SIGMOD Int. Conf., Chicago, 1988.

  22. G. Copeland, M. Franklin, and G. Weikum, “Uniform object management,” inInt. Conf. on EDBT, Venice, 1990.

  23. S. Danforth and P. Valduriez, “A FAD for data-intensive applications,”IEEE Trans. Data Knowledge Engg., vol. 4, no. 1, 1992.

  24. D.J. DeWitt, P. Futtersack, D. Maier, and F. Velez, “Study of three alternative workstation-server architectures for object-oriented database systems,” inInt. Conf. VLDB, Brisbane, Australia, 1990.

  25. D.J. Dewitt and R. Gerber, “Multiprocessor join algorithms,” inInt. Conf. VLDB, Stockholm, 1985.

  26. D.J. Dewitt and J. Gray, “Parallel database systems: the future of high performance database systems,”Comm. ACM, vol. 35, no. 6, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  27. D.J. Dewitt, J.F. Naughton, D.A. Schneider, “Parallel sorting on a shared-nothing architecture using probabilistic splitting,” inInt. Conf. Parallel and Distributed Information Systems, Miami, 1991.

  28. D.J. Dewitt et al., “The GAMMA database machine project,” IEEETrans. Knowledge Data Engg., vol. 2, no. 1, 1990.

  29. EDS Database Group, “EDS-collaborating for a high-performance parallel relational database,” inESPRIT Conf., Brussels, 1990.

  30. M. Eich, “Main memory database research directions,” inInt. Workshop Database Machines, Deauville, 1989.

  31. S. Fushimi, M. Kitsuregawa, and H. Tanaka, “An overview of the system software of a parallel relational database machine GRACE,” inInt. Conf. VLDB, Kyoto, 1986.

  32. S. Gamerman and M. Scholl, “Hardware versus software filtering: the VERSO experience,” inInt. Workshop Database Machines, Grand Bahama Island, 1985.

  33. G. Gardarin and P. Valduriez,Relational Databases and Knowledge Bases, Addison-Wesley: Reading, MA, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  34. G. Gardarin and P. Valduriez, “ESQL2: an extended SQL2 with F-logic semantics,” inIEEE Int. Conf. Data Engineering, Phoenix, 1992.

  35. S. Ghandeharizadeh, D. DeWitt, and W. Qureshi, “A performance analysis of alternative multi-attributed declustering strategies,” inACM SIGMOD Int. Conf., San Diego, 1992.

  36. G. Graefe, “Encapsulation of parallelism in the volcano query processing systems,” inACM SIGMOD Int. Conf., Atlantic City, 1990.

  37. J. Gray, “Transparency in its place — the case against transparent access to geographically distributed data,” inInt. Conf. Distributed Computing Systems, Paris, 1990.

  38. J. Gray (ed.),The Benchmark Handbook for Database and Transaction Processing Systems, Morgan Kaufman, 1991.

  39. G. Hallmark, “Function request shipping in a database machine environment,” inInt. Workshop on Database Machines, Deauville, 1989.

  40. B. Hart, S. Danforth, and P. Valduriez, “Parallelizing FAD: a database programming language,” inInt. Symp. Databases in Parallel and Distributed Systems, Austin, 1988.

  41. W. Hong and M. Stonebraker, “Optimization of parallel query execution plans in XPRS,” inInt. Conf. Parallel and Distributed Information Systems, Miami, 1991.

  42. D. Hsiao (ed.),Advanced Database Machine Architectures, Prentice Hall, 1983.

  43. H.-I. Hsiao and D. DeWitt, “A performance study of three high-availability data replication strategies,” inInt. Conf. Parallel and Distributed Information Systems, Miami, 1991.

  44. M.B. Jones and R.F. Rashid, “Mach and matchmaker: kernel and language support for object-oriented distributed systems,” inInt. Conf. OOPSLA, Portland, Oregon, 1986.

  45. J. Kiernan, C. de Maindreville, and E. Simon, “Making deductive databases a practical reality: a step forward,” inACM SIGMOD Int. Conf., Atlantic City, 1990.

  46. M. Kitsuregawa and Y. Ogawa, “A new parallel hash join method with robustness for data skew in super database computer (SDC),” inInt. Conf. VLDB, Brisbane, Australia, 1990.

  47. J.S. Kowalik (ed.),Parallel MIMD Computation: The HEP Supercomputer and Its Applications, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  48. R.S.G. Lanzelotte and P. Valduriez, “Extending the search strategy in a query optimizer,” inInt. Conf. Very Large Data Bases, Barcelona, Spain, 1991.

  49. R.S.G. Lanzelotte, P. Valduriez, and M. Zait, “Optimization of object-oriented recursive queries using cost-controlled strategies,” inACM SIGMOD Int. Conf., San Diego, 1992.

  50. R. Lorie et al., “Adding intra-parallelism to an existing DBMS: early experience,”IEEE Bull. Database Engg., vol. 12, no. 1, 1989.

  51. D. McKay and S. Shapiro, “Using active connection graphs for reasoning with recursive rules,” inInt. Joint Conf. AI, Vancouver, Canada, 1981.

  52. C. Mohan and I. Narang, “Efficient locking and caching of data in the multi-system shared disks transaction environment,” IBM Research Report RJ 8301, 1991.

  53. S. Naqvi and S. Tsur,A Logical Language for Data and Knowledge Bases, Computer Science Press, New York, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  54. P.M. Neches, “The anatomy of a database computer,” Digest of Papers,COMPCON, San Francisco, 1985.

  55. A. Osterhaug,Guide to Parallel Programming on Sequent Computer Systems, Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  56. T. Özsu and P. Valduriez,Principles of Distributed Dababase Systems, Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  57. T. Özsu and P. Valduriez, “Distributed databases: where are we now?”,IEEE Comput., vol. 24, no. 8, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  58. D.S. Parker, “Stream data analysis in Prolog,” in L. Sterling (ed.),The Practice of Prolog, MIT Press, 1990.

  59. S. Parker, E. Simon, and P. Valduriez, “SVP, a data model capturing sets, streams and parallelism,” inInt. Conf. VLDB, Vancouver, 1992.

  60. D. Patterson, G. Gibson, and R. Katz, “A case for redundant arrays of inexpensive disks,” inACM SIGMOD Int. Conf., Chicago, 1988.

  61. H. Pirahesh et al., “Parallelism in RDBMS: architectural issues and design,” inInt. Symp. Databases in Distributed and Parallel Systems, Dublin, 1988.

  62. M. Rozier et al., “Chorus distributed operating systems,”Comput. Systems, vol. 1, no. 4, 1988.

  63. T. K. Sellis, “Multiple query optimization,”ACM Trans. Database Systems, vol. 13, no. 1, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  64. M. Shapiro, O. Gruber, and D. Plainfossé, “A garbage detection protocol for a realistic distributed object-support system,” INRIA Research Report No. 1320, Rocquencourt, France, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  65. J.A. Sharp,An Introduction to Distributed and Parallel Processing, Blackwell Scientific Publications: Oxford, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  66. D. Shasha,Database Tuning: a Principled Approach, Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  67. D. Shasha and T.L. Wang, “Optimizing equijoin queries in distributed databases where relations are hash partitioned,”ACM Trans. Database Systems, vol. 16, no. 2, 1991.

  68. A. Silberschatz, M. Stonebraker, and J.D. Ullman (eds.), “Database systems: achievements and opportunities,” inPJ Report of the NSF Invitational Workshop on the Future of Database Systems Research, Technical Report TR-90-22, UT, Austin, 1990.

  69. M. Stonebraker et al., “The design of XPRS,” inInt. Conf. VLDB, Los Angeles, 1988.

  70. M. Stonebraker, L.A. Rowe, and M. Hiroshama, “The implementation of POSTGRES,”IEEE Trans. Knowledge Data Engg., vol. 2, no. 1, 1990.

  71. M. Stonebraker, L.A. Rowe, B. Lindsay, J. Gray, M. Carey, M. Brodie, P. Bernstein, and D. Beech, “Third-generation data base system manifesto,”ACM SIGMOD Record, vol. 19, no. 3, 1990.

  72. The Tandem Database Group, “NonStop SQL — a Distributed high-performance, High-Availability Implementation of SQL,” inInt. Workshop High-Performance Transaction Systems, Asilomar, CA, 1987.

  73. The Tandem Database Group, “A benchmark of NonStop SQL on the debit credit transaction,” inACM SIGMOD Int. Conf., Chicago, 1988.

  74. S. Thakkar and M. Sweiger, “Performance of an OLTP application on symmetry multiprocessor system,” inInt. Symp. Computer Architecture, Seattle, 1990.

  75. C. Turbyfill, C. Orji, and D. Bitton, “AS3 AP: an ANSI SQL standard scalable and portable benchmark for relational database systems,” in J. Gray (ed.),The Benchmark Handbook for Database and Transactions Processing Systems, Morgan Kaufman, 1991.

  76. M. Ubell, “The intelligent database machine,” inQuery Processing in DBMS, Springer-Verlag, 1985.

  77. J. Ullman, “Implementation of logic query languages for databases,”ACM Trans. Database Systems, vol. 10, no. 3, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  78. P. Valduriez (ed.),Data Management and Parallel Processing, Chapman and Hall, London, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  79. P. Valduriez: “Join indices,”ACM Trans. Database Systems, vol. 12, no. 2, 1987.

  80. P. Valduriez and G. Gardarin, “Join and semi-join algorithms for a multiprocessor database machine,”ACM Trans. Database Systems, vol. 9, no. 1, 1984.

  81. P. Valduriez and G. Gardarin,Analysis and Comparison of Relational Database Systems, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  82. P. Valduriez and S. Khoshafian, “Parallel evaluation of the transitive closure of a database relation,”Int. J. Parallel Programming, vol. 12, no. 1, 1988.

  83. P. Valduriez et al., “Compiling FAD, a database programming language,” inInt. Workshop Database Programming Languages, Portland, Oregon, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  84. G. Weikum, P. Zabback, and P. Scheuermann, “Dynamic file allocation in disk arrays,” inACM-SIGMOD Int. Conf., Denver, 1991.

  85. J. Wolf, D. Dias, P. Yu, and J. Turek, “An effective algorithm for parallelizing hash joins in the presence of data skews,” inInt. Conf. Data Engineering, Kobe, Japan, 1991.

  86. S. Zdonik and D. Maier (eds.),Reading in Object-Oriented Database Systems, Morgan Kaufmann, 1990.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Projet Rodin, INRIA, Rocquencourt, France

    Patrick Valduriez

Authors
  1. Patrick Valduriez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Valduriez, P. Parallel database systems: Open problems and new issues. Distrib Parallel Databases 1, 137–165 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01264049

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01264049

Keywords

Search

Navigation