A study of two transaction-processing architectures for distributed real-time database systems

Cataloged from PDF version of article.A real-time data base system (RTDBS) is designed to provide timely response to the transactions of data-intensive applications. Processing a transaction in a distributed RTDBS environment presents the design choice of how to provide access to remote data referenced by the transaction. Satisfaction of the timing constraints of transactions should be the primary factor to be considered in scheduling accesses to remote data. In this article, we describe and analyze two different alternative approaches to this fundamental design decision. With the first alternative, transaction operations are executed at the sites where required data pages reside. The other alternative is based on transmitting data pages wherever they are needed. Although the latter approach is characterized by large message volumes carrying data pages, it is shown in our experiments to perform better than the other approach under most of the work loads and system configurations tested. The performance metric used in the evaluations is the fraction of transactions that satisfy their timing constraints. © 1995

A network access protocol for hard real-time communication systems

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Distributed hard real-time systems are characterized by communication messages associated with timing constraints, typically in the form of deadlines. A message should be received at the destination before its deadline expires. Carrier sense multiple access with collision detection (CSMA/CD) appears to be one of the most common communication network access schemes that can be used in distributed hard real-time systems. In this paper, we propose a new real-time network access protocol which is based on the CSMA/CD scheme. The protocol classifies the messages into two classes as 'critical' and 'noncritical' messages. The messages close to their deadlines are considered to be critical. A critical message is given the right to access the network by preempting a noncritical message in transmission. Extensive simulation experiments have been conducted to evaluate the performance of the protocol. It is shown that the protocol can provide considerable improvement over the virtual time CSMA/CD protocol proposed for hard real-time communication by Zhao et al. (1)

Analysis of concurrency control protocols for real-time database systems

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This paper provides an approximate analytic solution method for evaluating the performance of concurrency control protocols developed for real-time database systems (RTDBSs). Transactions processed in a RTDBS are associated with timing constraints typically in the form of deadlines. The primary consideration in developing a RTDBS concurrency control protocol is the fact that satisfaction of the timing constraints of transactions is as important as maintaining the consistency of the underlying database. The proposed solution method provides the evaluation of the performance of concurrency control protocols in terms of the satisfaction rate of timing constraints. As a case study, a RTDBS concurrency control protocol, called High Priority, is analyzed using the proposed method. The accuracy of the performance results obtained is ascertained via simulation. The solution method is also used to investigate the real-time performance benefits of the High Priority over the ordinary Two-Phase Locking. © 1998 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved

An Evaluation of Network Access Protocols for Distributed Real-time Database Systems

Cataloged from PDF version of article.The results of a considerable number of works addressing various features of real-time database systems (RTDBSs) have recently appeared in the literature. An issue that has not received much attention yet is the performance of the communication network configuration in a distributed RTDBS. In this article, we examine the impact of underlying network architecture on the performance of a distributed RTDBS. In particular, we evaluate the real-time performance of distributed transactions in terms of the fraction of satisfied deadlines under various network access strategies. We also critically examine the common assumption of constant network delay for each communication message exchanged in a distributed RTDBS. (C) 1997 by Elsevier Science Inc

Research issues in real-time database systems

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Today's real-time systems are characterized by managing large volumes of data. Efficient database management algorithms for accessing and manipulating data are required to satisfy timing constraints of supported applications. Real-time database systems involve a new research area investigating possible ways of applying database systems technology to real-time systems. Management of real-time information through a database system requires the integration of concepts from both real-time systems and database systems. Some new criteria need to be developed to involve timing constraints of real-time applications in many database systems design issues, such as transaction/query processing, data buffering, CPU, and IO scheduling. In this paper, a basic understanding of the issues in real-time database systems is provided and the research efforts in this area are introduced. Different approaches to various problems of real-time database systems are briefly described, and possible future research directions are discussed

Design and evaluation of a new transaction execution model for multidatabase systems

Cataloged from PDF version of article.In this paper, we present a new transaction execution model that captures the formalism and semantics of various extended transaction models and adopts them to a multidatabase system (MDBS) environment. The proposed model covers nested transactions, various dependency types among transactions, and commit independent transactions. The formulation of complex MDBS transaction types can be accomplished easily with the extended semantics captured in the model. A detailed performance model of an MDBS is employed in investigating the performance implications of the proposed transaction model. © Elsevier Science Inc. 1997

Exploiting Data Mining Techniques for Broadcasting Data in Mobile Computing Environments

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Mobile computers can be equipped with wireless communication devices that enable users to access data services from any location. In wireless communication, the server-to-client (downlink) communication bandwidth is much higher than the client-to-server (uplink) communication bandwidth. This asymmetry makes the dissemination of data to client machines a desirable approach. However, dissemination of data by broadcasting may induce high access latency in case the number of broadcast data items is large. In this paper, we propose two methods aiming to reduce client access latency of broadcast data. Our methods are based on analyzing the broadcast history (i.e., the chronological sequence of items that have been requested by clients) using data mining techniques. With the first method, the data items in the broadcast disk are organized in such a way that the items requested subsequently are placed close to each other. The second method focuses on improving the cache hit ratio to be able to decrease the access latency. It enables clients to prefetch the data from the broadcast disk based on the rules extracted from previous data request patterns. The proposed methods are implemented on a Web log to estimate their effectiveness. It is shown through performance experiments that the proposed rule-based methods are effective in improving the system performance in terms of the average latency as well as the cache hit ratio of mobile clients

Adaptive schemes for location update generation in execution location-dependent continuous queries

Cataloged from PDF version of article.An important feature that is expected to be owned by today's mobile computing systems is the ability of processing location-dependent continuous queries on moving objects. The result of a location-dependent query depends on the current location of the mobile client which has generated the query as well as the locations of the moving objects on which the query has been issued. When a location-dependent query is specified to be continuous, the result of the query can continuously change. In order to provide accurate and timely query results to a client, the location of the client as well as the locations of moving objects in the system has to be closely monitored. Most of the location generation methods proposed in the literature aim to optimize utilization of the limited wireless bandwidth. The issues of correctness and timeliness of query results reported to clients have been largely ignored. In this paper, we propose an adaptive monitoring method (AMM) and a deadline-driven method (DDM) for managing the locations of moving objects. The aim of our methods is to generate location updates with the consideration of maintaining the correctness of query evaluation results without increasing location update workload. Extensive simulation experiments have been conducted to investigate the performance of the proposed methods as compared to a well-known location update generation method, the plain dead-reckoning (pdr). © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Transmission of continuous query results in mobile computing systems

Cataloged from PDF version of article.In a mobile computing environment, a user with a wireless connection to the information network can access data via submitting queries to data servers. As the mobility is the most distinguishing feature of the mobile computing paradigm, location becomes an important piece of information for the so-called location-dependent queries, where the answer to a query depends on the current location of the user who issued the query. A location-dependent query submitted by a mobile user can become more difficult to process when it is submitted as a continuous query (CQ) for which the answer changes as the user moves. The answer to a location-dependent CQ can be provided as a set of tuples [S, begin, end] indicating that object S is the answer of the query from time begin to time end. Once the tuples in the answer set are determined, the next step is to determine the transmission time of these tuples to the user. Transmission time of tuples is critical in the sense that it can have a considerable impact on both the communication overhead imposed on the wireless network and the availability of tuples in case of disconnections. In this paper, we propose three tuple transmission approaches that can be used to determine the transmission time of tuples in the answer set of a location-dependent CQ. We also evaluate the relative performance of the proposed approaches under different settings of environmental parameters. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved

Cluster searching strategies for collaborative recommendation systems

Cataloged from PDF version of article.In-memory nearest neighbor computation is a typical collaborative filtering approach for high recommendation accuracy. However, this approach is not scalable given the huge number of customers and items in typical commercial applications. Cluster-based collaborative filtering techniques can be a remedy for the efficiency problem, but they usually provide relatively lower accuracy figures, since they may become over-generalized and produce less-personalized recommendations. Our research explores an individualistic strategy which initially clusters the users and then exploits the members within clusters, but not just the cluster representatives, during the recommendation generation stage. We provide an efficient implementation of this strategy by adapting a specifically tailored cluster- skipping inverted index structure. Experimental results reveal that the individualistic strategy with the cluster-skipping index is a good compromise that yields high accuracy and reasonable scalability figures. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved