A framework for cost based optimization of hybrid CPU/GPU query plans in database systems

Abstract

Current database research identified the use of computational power of GPUs as a way to increase the performance of database systems. As GPU algorithms are not necessarily faster than their CPU counterparts, it is important to use the GPU only if it is beneficial for query processing. In a general database context, only few research projects address hybrid query processing, i.e., using a mix of CPU- and GPU-based processing to achieve optimal performance. In this paper, we extend our CPU/GPU scheduling framework to support hybrid query processing in database systems. We point out fundamental problems and propose an algorithm to create a hybrid query plan for a query using our scheduling framework. Additionally, we provide cost metrics, accounting for the possible overlapping of data transfers and computation on the GPU. Furthermore, we present algorithms to create hybrid query plans for query sequences and query trees