Optimizing multidimensional index trees for main memory access
Kihong Kim, Sang K. Cha, Keunjoo Kwon · 2001
Recent studies have shown that cache-conscious indexes such as the CSB+-tree outperform conventional main memory indexes such as the T-tree. The key idea of these cache-conscious indexes is to eliminate most of child pointers from a node to increase the fanout of the tree. When the node size is chosen in the order of the cache block size, this pointer elimination effectively reduces the tree height, and thus improves the cache behavior of the index. However, the pointer elimination cannot be directly applied to multidimensional index structures such as the R-tree, where the size of a key, typically, an MBR (minimum bounding rectangle), is much larger than that of a pointer. Simple elimination of four-byte pointers does not help much to pack more entries in a node.