QUERY PROCESSING AND

OPTIMIZATION
 QUERY PROCESSING
• REFERS TO A RANGE OF ACTIVITIES INVOLVED
IN EXTRACTING DATA FROM DATABASE.
• ACTIVITIES INCLUDE QUERY TRANSLATION
FOR PHYSICAL LEVEL,QUERY EVALUATION.
• BASIC STEPS IN QUERY PROCESSING ARE
PARSING,TRANSLATION,OPTIMIZATION AND
EVALUATION
• TRANSLATION PROCESS WORKS AS SIMILAR
AS THAT OF A COMPILER PARSER.
• HUMAN CAN USE SQL TO REPRESENT BUT FOR
INTERNAL REPRESENTATION OF
SYSTEM,RELATIONAL ALGEBRA KIND OF
EXPRESSION REQUIRED.
 Query Processing
parser and relational algebra
query
translator expression

optimizer

evaluation
output evaluation plan
engine

data
data data statistics
 Translation Example
EXAMPLE :Possible SQL Query:
SELECT balance
FROM account
WHERE balance<2500
Possible Relational Algebra Query:
balance balance<2500(account)
 Tree Representation of Relational Algebra
(It is also known as query evaluatio plan)
QUERY EVALUATION PLAN FOR THE RELATIONAL
ALGEBRA EXPRESSION:

balance

balance<2500

account
 Making An Evaluation Plan
• ANNOTATE QUERY TREE WITH EVALUATION
INSTRUCTION:
balance

balance<2500

account
• THE SEQUENCE OF OPERATION USED TO EVALUATE
QUERY IS QUERY EXECUTION PLAN OR EVALUATION
PLAN.
 QUERY EXECUTION ENGINE
• TAKES A QUERY EVALUATION PLAN,EXECUTE
AND RETURN ANSWER TO QUERY.
• DIFFERENT EVALUATION PLAN CAN HAVE
DIFFERENT COST FOR GIVEN QUERY.
• AFTER A QUERY PLAN BEING CHOSEN,IT IS
EVALUATED WITH THE PLAN AND RESULTING
QUERY IS OUTPUT.
 BEFORE QUERY OPTIMIZATION
• COST OF EXECUTION PLANS MUST BE
PREDICTED .
– Can be Measured by
• CPU time,
• Number of disk block reads,
• Network communication
– Major factor is buffer space.
– QUERY COST CAN BE MEASURED BY NO. OF
RESOURCES LIKE CPU TIME TO EXECUTE,DISK
ACCESS ETC.
 QUERY OPTIMIZATION
• THE PROCESS OF SELECTING MOST EFFICIENT
QUERY EVALUATION PLAN AMONG MANY
STRATEGIES.
 INDEXING
• INDEX FOR A FILE IN DB SYSTEM WORKS
SIMILAR AS THAT OF INDEX IN A TEXTBOOK.
• TO SEARCH A PARTICULAR CHAPTER IN
BOOK,WE SEARCH AT THE INDEX,WORDS IN
INDEX ARE SORTED,SO EASILY WE CAN BE
ABLE TO FIND.
• DB SYSTEM INDICES ARE SIMILAR TO IT.
• EX. TO RETRIEVE AN ACCOUNT RECORD,DB
SYSTEM LOOK UP AN INDEX .
 TYPES OF INDICES
• ORDERED: BASED ON SORTED ORDERING OF
VALUES.
• HASH INDICES: BASED ON UNIFORM
DISTRIBUTION OF VALUES.
 FACTORS DRIVING THE EVALUATION
• ACCESS TYPE: FIND RECORD WITH SPECIFIC
ATTRIBUTE VALUE IN A RANGE.
• ACCESS TIME: AMOUNT OF TIME TAKEN TO
FIND A PARTICULAR DATA ITEM.
• INSERTION TIME: TIME TO INSERT A DATA
ITEM AS WELL AS TO UPDATE.
• DELETION TIME: TO DELETE A DATA ITEM AS
WELL AS UPDATE THE INDEX.
• SPACE OVERHEAD: EXTRA SPACE OCCUPIED BY
INDEX STRUCTURE.