Real-time index concurrency control

Real time database systems are expected to rely heavily on indexes to speed up data access and thereby help more transactions meet their deadlines. Accordingly, high performance index concurrency control (ICC) protocols are required to prevent contention for the index from becoming a bottleneck. We develop real time variants of a representative set of classical B-tree ICC protocols and, using a detailed simulation model, compare their performance for real time transactions with firm deadlines. We also present and evaluate a real time ICC protocol called GUARD-link that augments the classical B-link protocol with a feedback based admission control mechanism. Both point and range queries, as well as the undos of the index action transactions are included in the study. The performance metrics used in evaluating the ICC protocols are the percentage of transactions that miss their deadlines and the fairness with respect to transaction type and size. Experimental results show that the performance characteristics of the real time version of an ICC protocol could be significantly different from the performance of the same protocol in a conventional (nonreal time) database system. In particular, B-link protocols, which are reputed to provide the best overall performance in conventional database systems, perform poorly under heavy real time loads. The new GUARD-link protocol, however, although based on the B-link approach, delivers the best performance (with respect to all performance metrics) for a variety of real time transaction workloads, by virtue of its admission control mechanism. GUARD-link provides close to ideal fairness in most environments     

FRAPP: a framework for high-accuracy privacy-preserving mining

To preserve client privacy in the data mining process, a variety of techniques based on random perturbation of individual data records have been proposed recently. In this paper, we present FRAPP, a generalized matrix-theoretic framework of random perturbation, which facilitates a systematic approach to the design of perturbation mechanisms for privacy-preserving mining. Specifically, FRAPP is used to demonstrate that (a) the prior techniques differ only in their choices for the perturbation matrix elements, and (b) a symmetric positive-definite perturbation matrix with minimal condition number can be identified, substantially enhancing the accuracy even under strict privacy requirements. We also propose a novel perturbation mechanism wherein the matrix elements are themselves characterized as random variables, and demonstrate that this feature provides significant improvements in privacy at only a marginal reduction in accuracy. The quantitative utility of FRAPP, which is a general-purpose random-perturbation-based privacy-preserving mining technique, is evaluated specifically with regard to association and classification rule mining on a variety of real datasets. Our experimental results indicate that, for a given privacy requirement, either substantially lower modeling errors are incurred as compared to the prior techniques, or the errors are comparable to those of direct mining on the true database. A partial and preliminary version of this paper appeared in the Proc. of the 21st IEEE Intl. Conf. on Data Engineering (ICDE), Tokyo, Japan, 2005, pgs. 193–204.     

Distributed concurrency control based on limited wait-depth

The performance of high-volume transaction processing systems for business applications is determined by the degree of contention for hardware resources as well as for data. Hardware resource requirements may be met cost-effectively with a data-partitioned or shared-nothing architecture. However, the two-phase locking (2PL) concurrency control method may restrict the performance of a shared-nothing system more severely than that of a centralized system due to increased lock holding times. Deadlock detection and resolution are an added complicating factor in shared-nothing systems. The authors describe distributed Wait-Depth Limited (WDL) concurrency control (CC), a locking-based distributed CC method that limits the wait-depth of blocked transactions to one, thus preventing the occurrence of deadlocks. Several implementations of distributed WDL which vary in the number of messages and the amount of information available for decision making are discussed. The performance of a generic implementation of distributed WDL is compared with distributed 2PL (with general-waiting policy) and the Wound-Wait CC method through a detailed simulation. It is shown that distributed WDL behaves similarly to 2PL for low lock contention levels, but for substantial lock contention levels (caused by higher degrees of transaction concurrency), distributed WDL outperforms the other methods to a significant degree     

MANDATE: managing networks using database technology

There has been a growing demand for the development of tools to manage enterprise communication networks. A management information database is the heart of a network management system-it provides the interface between all functions of the network management system and, therefore, has to provide sophisticated functionality allied with high performance. The authors introduce the design of MANDATE (MAnaging Networks using DAtabase TEchnology), a proposed database system for effectively supporting the management of large enterprise networks. The MANDATE design makes a conscious attempt to take advantage of the special characteristics of network data and transactions, and of advances in database technology, to efficiently derive some of the required management functionality     

Value-based scheduling in real-time database systems

In a real-time database system, an application may assign avalue to a transaction to reflect the return it expects to receive if the transaction commits before its deadline. Most research on real-time database systems has focused on systems where all transactions are assigned the same value, the performance goal being to minimize the number of missed deadlines. When transactions are assigned different values, the goal of the system shifts to maximizing the sum of the values of those transactions that commit by their deadlines. Minimizing the number of missed deadlines becomes a secondary concern. In this article, we address the problem of establishing a priority ordering among transactions characterized by both values and deadlines that results in maximizing the realized value. Of particular interest is the tradeoff established between these values and deadlines in constructing the priority ordering. Using a detailed simulation model, we evaluate the performance of several priority mappings that make this tradeoff in different, but fixed, ways. In addition, a bucket priority mechanism that allows the relative importannce of values and deadlines to be controlled is introduced and studied. The notion of associating a penalty with transactions whose deadlines are not met is also briefly considered.When this work was done he was with the Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison.     

Secure buffering in firm real-time database systems

Many real-time database applications arise in electronic financial services, safety-critical installations and military systems where enforcing security is crucial to the success of the enterprise. We investigate here the performance implications, in terms of killed transactions, of guaranteeing multi-level secrecy in a real-time database system supporting applications with firm deadlines. In particular, we focus on the buffer management aspects of this issue. Our main contributions are the following. First, we identify the importance and difficulties of providing secure buffer management in the real-time database environment. Second, we present SABRE, a novel buffer management algorithm that provides covert-channel-free security. SABRE employs a fully dynamic one-copy allocation policy for efficient usage of buffer resources. It also incorporates several optimizations for reducing the overall number of killed transactions and for decreasing the unfairness in the distribution of killed transactions across security levels. Third, using a detailed simulation model, the real-time performance of SABRE is evaluated against unsecure conventional and real-time buffer management policies for a variety of security-classified transaction workloads and system configurations. Our experiments show that SABRE provides security with only a modest drop in real-time performance. Finally, we evaluate SABRE's performance when augmented with the GUARD adaptive admission control policy. Our experiments show that this combination provides close to ideal fairness for real-time applications that can tolerate covert-channel bandwidths of up to one bit per second (a limit specified in military standards). Received March 1, 1999 / Accepted October 1, 1999     

DIASPORA: A highly distributed web-query processing system

Current proposals for web querying systems have assumed a centralized processing architecture wherein data is shipped from the remote sites to the user's site. We present here the design and implementation of DIASPORA, a highly distributed query processing system for the web. It is based on the premise that several web applications are more naturally processed in a distributed manner, opening up possibilities of significant reductions in network traffic and user response times. DIASPORA is built over an expressive graph-based data model that utilizes simple heuristics and lends itself to automatic generation. The model captures both the content of web documents and the hyperlink structural framework of a web site. Distributed queries on the model are expressed through a declarative language that permits users to explicitly specify navigation. DIASPORA implements a query-shipping model wherein queries are autonomously forwarded from one web-site to another, without requiring much coordination from the query originating site. Its design addresses a variety of interesting issues that arise in the distributed web context including determining query completion, handling query rewriting, supporting query termination and preventing multiple computations of a query at a site due to the same query arriving through different paths in the hyperlink framework. The DIASPORA system is currently operational and is undergoing testing on our campus network. In this paper we describe the design of the system and report initial performance results that indicate significant performance improvements over comparable centralized approaches. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Mathematical Characterization and Simulation of LoRa

Wireless Personal Communications - LoRa is a recently developed physical layer modulation technique characterized by low power consumption and long range communication capabilities. Due to the...