Optimal database reorganisation: some practical difficulties

There are fundamental difficulties associated with the selection of suitable reorganization strategies for real-life database systems. The time-dependent behavior of such systems rarely conforms to any of the abstract descriptions used. This note reports on certain rather unexpected observations tha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Information processing letters 1982-08, Vol.15 (1), p.23-27
Main Author: Leung, C.H.C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Computer science
optimal reorganisation strategy
performance measurement
Reorganization
Simulation
Structure
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Summary:There are fundamental difficulties associated with the selection of suitable reorganization strategies for real-life database systems. The time-dependent behavior of such systems rarely conforms to any of the abstract descriptions used. This note reports on certain rather unexpected observations that have come to light as a result of empirical studies and which have implications for database reorganization research. A set of experiments reveals that a number of practical difficulties become immediately apparent: 1. It is no simple task to discover the performance trend of a system and to tell whether deterioration actually has occurred. 2. The simplistic description of system behavior used by some authors bears little resemblance to reality, and quantifying the magnitude of performance change is far from straightforward. 3. The possibility of spontaneous improvement cannot be ignored. 4. The form of the performance curve indicates that deciding on an optimal reorganization strategy is a formidable task. Figure.
ISSN:0020-0190
1872-6119
DOI:10.1016/0020-0190(82)90079-5