FastBit: interactively searching massive data
Kesheng John Wu, Sean D. Ahern, E. Wes Bethel, Jiabei Chen, Hank Childs, Estelle Cormier-Michel, Cameron G R Geddes, Junmin Gu, Hans Hagen, Bernd Hamann, Wendy S. Koegler, J. Lauret, J. Meredith, Peter Messmer, Ekow J. Otoo, V. Perevoztchikov, A. M. Poskanzer, Prabhat, Oliver Rübel, Arie Shoshani · Journal of Physics Conference Series · 2009
Abstract. As scientific instruments and computer simulations produce more and more data, the task of locating the essential information to gain insight becomes increasingly difficult. FastBit is an efficient software tool to address this challenge. In this article, we present a summary of the key underlying technologies, namely bitmap compression, encoding, and binning. Together these techniques enable FastBit to answer structured (SQL) queries orders of magnitude faster than popular database systems. To illustrate how FastBit is used in applications, we present three examples involving a high-energy physics experiment, a combustion simulation, and an accelerator simulation. In each case, FastBit significantly reduces the response time and enables interactive exploration on terabytes of data. 1.