Parallel Query Support for Multidimensional Data: Intra-object Parallelism

Intra-query parallelism is a well-established mechanism for achievng high performance in (object-) relational database systems. However, the methods have yet not been applied to the upcoming field of multidimensional array databases. Specific properties of multidimensional array data require new parallel algorithms. This paper presents a number of new techniques for parallelizing queries in multidimensional array database management systems. It discusses their implementation in the RasDaMan DBMS, the first DBMS for generic multidimensional array data. The efficiency of the techniques presented is demonstrated using typical queries on large multidimensional data volumes.