A New General Purpose Parallel Database System

This paper is concerned with the transparent parallelisation of declarative database queries, based on theoretical principles. We have designed an entire database architecture suitable for use on any generalpurpose parallel machine. This architecture addresses the shortcomings in exibility and scalability of commercial parallel databases. A substantial bene t is that the mathematical principles underlying our framework allow provably correct parallel evaluations and optimisations, using compile-time transformations. We address parallelism in a language-independent way through the choice of monoids as a formulation for expressing and modelling queries. Queries expressed in our declarative language are transformed into applications of a higher{order function, the monoid homomorphism. The evaluation of this function is partitioned at run-time, giving a tree-like processor topology, the depth and breadth of which can be varied with a declarative execution plan. Leaf nodes within the evalu...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1997
• Where: ISPAN
• Authors: Mohamad Afshar, J. Bates, Gavin M. Bierman, K. Moody
• Keywords: Correct Parallel Evaluations, Declarative Database Queries, Distributed And Parallel Computing, ISPAN 1997, Parallel Evaluations