On the design of a query processing strategy in a distributed database environment
C. Yu, C. C. Chang · 1983
An algorithm is given to process a given query in a fragmented distributed data base environment. Unlike previous algorithms, it has the following desired features.(1) It makes use of redundant relations to reduce communication cost;(2) a copy of each relation referenced by the query is selected so that the set of relations are contained in the minimum number of sites;(3) an efficient algorithm to process fragments is provided;(4) all relations that need not be sent to the assembly site to produce the answer are identified. Thus, unnecessary sending of these relations across sites and processing on these relations, which are common in earlier algorithms, are avoided;(5) useless semi-joins are discarded and worse semi-joins are replaced by better ones;(6) a process to estimate the cost and the benefit of a semi-join, based on dynamic execution of semi-joins is introduced. It is expected that the new process is more accurate than earlier estimation process.The algorithm is easy to implement and is operational.