TY - JOUR A1 - Kossmann, Jan A1 - Halfpap, Stefan A1 - Jankrift, Marcel A1 - Schlosser, Rainer T1 - Magic mirror in my hand, which is the best in the land? BT - an experimental evaluation of index selection algorithms JF - Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment N2 - Indexes are essential for the efficient processing of database workloads. Proposed solutions for the relevant and challenging index selection problem range from metadata-based simple heuristics, over sophisticated multi-step algorithms, to approaches that yield optimal results. The main challenges are (i) to accurately determine the effect of an index on the workload cost while considering the interaction of indexes and (ii) a large number of possible combinations resulting from workloads containing many queries and massive schemata with possibly thousands of attributes.
In this work, we describe and analyze eight index selection algorithms that are based on different concepts and compare them along different dimensions, such as solution quality, runtime, multi-column support, solution granularity, and complexity. In particular, we analyze the solutions of the algorithms for the challenging analytical Join Order, TPC-H, and TPC-DS benchmarks. Afterward, we assess strengths and weaknesses, infer insights for index selection in general and each approach individually, before we give recommendations on when to use which approach. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.14778/3407790.3407832 SN - 2150-8097 VL - 13 IS - 11 SP - 2382 EP - 2395 PB - Association for Computing Machinery CY - New York ER -