File Organization & Indexing

Reading: C&B, Appendix C

In this lecture you will learn

How DBMS physically organizes data Different file organizations or access methods What is Indexing? Different indexing methods How to create indexes using SQL

Dept. of Computing Science, University of Aberdeen

Introduction
DBMS has to store data somewhere Choices:
Main memory
Expensive compared to secondary and tertiary storage Fast in memory operations are fast Volatile not possible to save data from one run to its next Used for storing current data

Secondary storage (hard disk)

Tertiary storage (tapes)

Less expensive compared to main memory Slower compared to main memory, faster compared to tapes Persistent data from one run can be saved to the disk to be used in the next run Used for storing the database Cheapest Slowest sequential data access Used for data archives
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Dept. of Computing Science, University of Aberdeen

DBMS stores data on hard disks

This means that data needs to be
read from the hard disk into memory (RAM) Written from the memory onto the hard disk

Because I/O disk operations are slow query performance depends upon how data is stored on hard disks The lowest component of the DBMS performs storage management activities Other DBMS components need not know how these low level activities are performed
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Basics of Data storage on hard disk

A disk is organized into a number of blocks or pages A page is the unit of exchange between the disk and the main memory A collection of pages is known as a file DBMS stores data in one or more files on the hard disk
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Database Tables on Hard Disk

Database tables are made up of one or more tuples (rows) Each tuple has one or more attributes One or more tuples from a table are written into a page on the hard disk
Larger tuples may need more than one page! Tuples on the disk are known as records Records are separated by record delimiter Attributes on the hard disk are known as fields Fields are separated by field delimiter

Dept. of Computing Science, University of Aberdeen

File Organization
The physical arrangement of data in a file into records and pages on the disk File organization determines the set of access methods for Therefore, file organization synonymous with access method We study three types of file organization
Unordered or Heap files Ordered or sequential files Hash files Storing and retrieving records from a file

We examine each of them in terms of the operations we perform on the database

Insert a new record Search for a record (or update a record) Delete a record

Dept. of Computing Science, University of Aberdeen

Unordered Or Heap File

Records are stored in the same order in which they are created Insert operation

Search (or update) operation

Delete Operation

Fast because the incoming record is written at the end of the last page of the file Slow because linear search is performed on pages Slow because the record to be deleted is first searched for Deleting the record creates a hole in the page Periodic file compacting work required to reclaim the wasted space
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Ordered or Sequential File

Records are sorted on the values of one or more fields Search (or update) Operation Delete Operation Insert Operation
Ordering field the field on which the records are sorted Ordering key the key of the file when it is used for record sorting Fast because binary search is performed on sorted records Update the ordering field? Fast because searching the record is fast Periodic file compacting work is, of course, required Poor because if we insert the new record in the correct position we need to shift all the subsequent records in the file Alternatively an overflow file is created which contains all the new records as a heap Periodically overflow file is merged with the main file If overflow file is created search and delete operations for records in the overflow file have to be linear!

Dept. of Computing Science, University of Aberdeen

Hash File
Is an array of buckets
Given a record, r a hash function, h(r) computes the index of the bucket in which record r belongs h uses one or more fields in the record called hash fields Hash key - the key of the file when it is used by the hash function
Assume that the staff last name is used as the hash field Assume also that the hash file size is 26 buckets - each bucket corresponding to each of the letters from the alphabet Then a hash function can be defined which computes the bucket address (index) based on the first letter in the last name.
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Example hash function

Hash File (2)

Insert Operation
Fast because the hash function computes the index of the bucket to which the record belongs
If that bucket is full you go to the next free one

Search Operation

Fast because the hash function computes the index of the bucket

Delete Operation

Performance may degrade if the record is not found in the bucket suggested by hash function

Fast once again for the same reason of hashing function being able to locate the record quick
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Indexing
Can we do anything else to improve query performance other than selecting a good file organization? Yes, the answer lies in indexing Index - a data structure that allows the DBMS to locate particular records in a file more quickly

Types of Index

Very similar to the index at the end of a book to locate various topics covered in the book

Sparse index has only some of the search key values in the file Dense index has an index corresponding to every search key value in the file

Primary index one primary index per file Clustering index one clustering index per file data file is ordered on a non-key field and the index file is built on that non-key field Secondary index many secondary indexes per file

Dept. of Computing Science, University of Aberdeen

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Primary Indexes
The data file is sequentially ordered on the key field Index file stores all (dense) or some (sparse) values of the key field and the page number of the data file in which the corresponding record is stored
B002 B003 B004 B005 1 1 2 2
Branch B002 record Branch B003 record Branch B004 record Branch B005 record Branch B007 record

Branch
BranchNo B002 B003 Street 56 Clover Dr 163 Main St 32 Manse Rd 22 Deer Rd 16 Argyll St City London Glasgow Bristol London Aberdeen Postcode NW10 6EU G11 9QX BS99 1NZ SW1 4EH AB2 3SU

2
3 4

B004 B005 B007

B007

3
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Dept. of Computing Science, University of Aberdeen

Indexed Sequential Access Method

ISAM Indexed sequential access method is based on primary index Default access method or table type in MySQL, MyISAM is an extension of ISAM Insert and delete operations disturb the sorting

You need an overflow file which periodically needs to be merged with the main file
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Secondary Indexes
An index file that uses a non primary field as an index e.g. City field in the branch table They improve the performance of queries that use attributes other than the primary key You can use a separate index for every attribute you wish to use in the WHERE clause of your select query But there is the overhead of maintaining a large number of these indexes
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Creating indexes in SQL

You can create an index for every table you create in SQL For example
CREATE INDEX branchNoIndex on branch(branchNo); CREATE INDEX numberCityIndex on branch(branchNo,city); DROP INDEX branchNoIndex;
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Summary
File organization or access method determines the performance of search, insert and delete operations.
Access methods are the primary means to achieve improved performance

Index structures help to improve the performance further

More index structures in the next lecture
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