Carleton University
Technical Report TR-97-03
January 1997
TR-97-03: Using Networks of Workstations for Database Query Operations
Abstract
Performance of database systems can be improved by applying parallel processing techniques. Several commercial parallel database systems are available but these areexpensive. In the parallel processing area, there is a trend to use networks of workstations as a virtual parallel machine. The obvious advantage of such systems is their low cost. The availability of public domain software (such as PVM and MPI) to configure a parallel virtual machine over a network of workstations has led several researchers to study performance issues in this area. In this paper, we propose the use of network of workstations to improve the performance of database queries. We present analysis of a four-way join operation to demonstrate the feasibility of our proposal. However, using networks of workstations for database processing poses its own problems. These problems have to be solved before we can profitably employ networks of workstations for database applications. We provide a discussion of the issues involved and pointers for further research.