Efficient Distributed Skyline Queries for Mobile Applications

In this paper, we consider skyline queries in a mobile and distributed environment, where data objects are distributed in some sites (database servers) which are interconnected through a high-speed wired network, and queries are issued by mobile units (laptop, cell phone, etc.) which access the data objects of database servers by wireless channels. The inherent properties of mobile computing environment such as mobility, limited wireless bandwidth, frequent disconnection, make skyline queries more complicated. We show how to efficiently perform distributed skyline queries in a mobile environment and propose a skyline query processing approach, called efficient distributed skyline based on mobile computing (EDS-MC). In EDS-MC, a distributed skyline query is decomposed into five processing phases and each phase is elaborately designed in order to reduce the network communication, network delay and query response time. We conduct extensive experiments in a simulated mobile database system, and the experimental results demonstrate the superiority of EDS-MC over other skyline query processing techniques on mobile computing.