Some Keywords in Parallel Database Systems

Some Keywords in Parallel Database Management System

Coarse Grain Parallel Machine

It is a parallel machine architecture in which parallelism is achieved by connecting small number of powerful processors. Such a system is used for executing more queries/transactions in parallel (in case of Interquery Parallelism).

Degree of Parallelism

The number of resources (say processors) need to do certain things in parallel without affecting (degrading) the performance of the parallel system.

Fine Grain Parallel Machine

It is a parallel machine architecture in which parallelism is achieved by connecting more number of simple processors. Such a system is used for parallelizing and executing a single query in parallel (in case of Intraquery Parallelism). Typically, scientific queries or more complex queries are executed this way.

Hash Partitioning

In parallel database, Hash partitioning is one of the data partitioning techniques (others, Round-robin and Range partitioning) primarily used for distributing tuples (records) among the chosen disks using a hash function. It works by using a hash function which is defined on an attribute or set of attributes on which partitions need to be made. Hash function should be designed to distribute the data into n disks which is finite.

Interference

Newly generated requests must compete with ongoing processes for sharing the resources like system bus, disks, or locks that are held by the ongoing processes. This activity might cause slow down in the overall processes. This kind of intervention is called interference.

Linear Speed-up

If the speedup of a parallel database system is N when N times larger system used for processing the requests handled by a smaller system is called Linear Speed-up.

Pipelined parallelism

It is a form of parallelism where the output of one processor is consumed as the input of other processor immediately after the first record of the result is generated.

Range Partitioning

In parallel database, Range partitioning is one of the data partitioning techniques (others, Hash and Round-robin partitioning) primarily used for distributing tuples (records) among the chosen disks using set of ranges. It works by choosing a range vector. The elements of range vector are the values of the partitioning attribute. Range vectors are chosen based on the number of disks available, which is finite.

Response Time

The amount of time consumed by a single machine (parallel machines in the case of parallel database) to finish a job since it is submitted for execution. This is one of the two performance measures of a database management system (the other one is Throughput).

Round-robin Partitioning

In parallel database, Round-robin partitioning is one of the data partitioning techniques (others, Hash and Range partitioning) primarily used for distributing tuples (records) among the chosen disks. It works by distributing the records of a table into n different disks in round-robin fashion like first record to first disk, second record to second disk and so on, iteratively. Here, n, the number of disks is finite value.

Scale-UP

It is the execution of larger task using parallel implementation of more resources in the same amount of time which was consumed by smaller task (increasing the degree of parallelism). Scaleup means enhanced throughput.

Shared Disk Architecture

It is one of the parallel architecture in parallel database management system. Many processors share a common disk/disk setup. Here, processors have their own memory. That is, every processor has its private memory.

Shared Memory Architecture

Shared Memory Architecture is one of parallel architecture in parallel database management system. Many processors share a common memory (RAM) and disk setup in this architecture, which really helps in inter processor communication.

Shared Nothing Architecture

This is yet another parallel architecture in parallel database systems. Every processor has its own memory and disk which are connected through high speed network. This is the architecture widely used in the case of Distributed Database Systems.

Skew

Skew is the effect causes the performance degradation of parallel system due to the uneven distribution of work load.

Speed-Up

It is the execution of a given task faster than before using parallel implementation of more resources (increasing the degree of parallelism). Speedup means improved response time.

Start-up Cost

In parallel database systems, the start-up cost is the cost associated with the task (queries/transactions) initiation. That is, if a task is to be done in parallel, then it has to be broken into pieces (equal) where every piece of task can be done on different processors.

Sub-linear Speed-up

A parallel system cannot show linear speedup always. It is due to the reasons like Skew, Interference, Startup and Assembling costs involved in parallelizing the process. Hence, the speedup is going to be little lesser than N (see Linear Speed-up). Such a speedup is called Sub-linear Speed-up.

Throughput

The number of jobs (jobs can be queries/transactions) that can be completed in a given amount of time by a machine (a parallel machine in the case of parallel database). This is one of the two performance measures of a database management system (the other one is Response Time).