We consider the problem of computing answers to queries by using materialized views. Aside from its potential in optimizing query evaluation, the problem also arises in applications such as Global Information Systems, Mobile Computing and maintaining physical data independence. We consider the problem of finding a rewriting of a query that uses the materialized views, the problem of finding minimal rewritings, and finding complete rewritings (i.e., rewritings that use only the views). We show that all the possible rewritings can be obtained by considering containment mappings from the views to the query, and that the problems we consider are NP-complete when both the query and the views are conjunctive and don't involve built-in comparison predicates. We show that the problem has two independent sources of complexity (the number of possible containment mappings, and the complexity of deciding which literals from the original query can be deleted). We describe a polynomial time algorith...

In this paper we motivate and describe materialized views, their applications, and the problems and techniques for their maintenance. We present a taxonomy of view maintenanceproblems basedupon the class of views considered, upon the resources used to maintain the view, upon the types of modi#cations to the base data that areconsidered during maintenance, and whether the technique works for all instances of databases and modi#cations. We describe some of the view maintenancetechniques proposed in the literature in terms of our taxonomy. Finally, we consider new and promising application domains that are likely to drive work in materialized views and view maintenance. 1 Introduction What is a view? A view is a derived relation de#ned in terms of base #stored# relations. A view thus de#nes a function from a set of base tables to a derived table; this function is typically recomputed every time the view is referenced. What is a materialized view? A view can be materialized by storin...

Abstract We investigate the problem of incremental maintenance of an SQL view in the face of database updates, and show that it is possible to reduce the total time cost of view maintenance by materializing (and maintaining) additional views. We formulate the problem of determining the optimal set of additional views to materialize as an optimization problem over the space of possible view sets (which includes the empty set). The optimization problem is harder than query optimization since it has to deal with multiple view sets, updates of multiple relations, and multiple ways of maintaining each view set for each updated relation. We develop a memoing solution for the problem; the solution can be implemented using the expression DAG representation used in rule-based optimizers such as Volcano. We demonstrate that global optimization cannot, in general, be achieved by locally optimizing each materialized subview, because common subexpressions between different materialized subviews can allow nonoptimal local plans to be combined into an optimal global plan. We identify conditions on materialized subviews in the expression DAG when local optimization is possible. Finally, we provide a systematic space of heuristics that can be used to efficiently determine a useful set of additional views to materialize. Our results are particularly important for the efficient checking of assertions (complex integrity constraints) in the SQL-92 standard, since the incremental checking of such integrity constraints is known to be essentially equivalent to the view maintenance problem.

We consider the view data lineage problem in a warehousing environment: For a given data item in a materialized warehouse view, we want to identify the set of source data items that produced the view item. We formalize the problem and present a lineage tracing algorithm for relational views with aggregation. Based on our tracing algorithm, we propose a number of schemes for storing auxiliary views that enable consistent and efficient lineage tracing in a multisource data warehouse. We report on a performance study of the various schemes, identifying which schemes perform best in which settings. Based on our results, we have implemented a lineage tracing package in the WHIPS data warehousing system prototype at Stanford. With this package, users can select view tuples of interest, then efficiently "drill down" to examine the source data that produced them. 1 Introduction Data warehousing systems collect data from multiple distributed sources, integrate the information as materialized v...

We present novel algorithms for the problem of using materialized views to compute answers to SQL queries with grouping and aggregation, in the presence of multiset tables. In addition to its obvious potential in query optimization, this problem is important in many applications, such as data warehousing, very large transaction recording systems, global information systems and mobile computing, where access to local or cached materialized views may be cheaper than access to the underlying database. Our contributions are the following: First, we show that in the case where the query has grouping and aggregation but the views do not, a view is usable in answering a query only if there is an isomorphism between the view and a portion of the query. Second, when the views also have grouping and aggregation we identify conditions under which the aggregation information present in a view is sufficient to perform the aggregation computations required in the query. The algorithms we describe fo...

To achieve interoperability, modern information systems and e-commerce applications use mappings to translate data from one representation to another. In dynamic environments like the Web, data sources may change not only their data but also their schemas, their semantics, and their query capabilities. Such changes must be reflected in the mappings. Mappings left inconsistent by a schema change have to be detected and updated. As large, complicated schemas become more prevalent, and as data is reused in more applications, manually maintaining mappings (even simple mappings like view definitions) is becoming impractical. We present a novel framework and a tool (ToMAS) for automatically adapting mappings as schemas evolve. Our approach considers not only local changes to a schema, but also changes that may affect and transform many components of a schema. We consider a comprehensive class of mappings for relational and XML schemas with choice types and (nested) constraints...

. Current view technology supports only static views in the sense that views become undefined and hence obsolete as soon as the underlying information sources (ISs) undergo capability changes. We propose to address this new view evolution problem - which we call view synchronization - by a novel solution approach that allows affected view definitions to be dynamically evolved to keep them in synch with evolving ISs. We present in this paper a general strategy for the view synchronization process that guided by constraints imposed by the view evolution preferences embedded in the view definition achieves view preservation (i.e., view redefinition). We present the formal correctness, the CVS algorithm, as well as numerous examples to demonstrate the main concepts. 1 Introduction Advanced applications such as web-based information services, digital libraries, and data mining typically operate in an information space populated with a large number of dynamic information sources (ISs) such ...

When answering queries using external information sources, their contents can be described by views. To answer a query, we must rewrite it using the set of views presented by the sources. When the external information sources also have the ability to answer some (perhaps limited) sets of queries that require performing operations on their data, the set of views presented by the source may be infinite (albeit encoded in some finite fashion). Previous work on answering queries using views has only considered the case where the set of views is finite. In order to exploit the ability of information sources to answer more complex queries, we consider the problem of answering conjunctive queries using infinite sets of conjunctive views. Our first result is that an infinite set of conjunctive views can be partitioned into a finite number of equivalence classes, such that picking one view from every nonempty class is sufficient to determine whether the query can be answered using the views. Se...

The construction and maintenance of data warehouses (views) in large-scale environments composed of numerous distributed information sources (ISs) such as the WWW has received great attention recently. Such environments are plagued with continuously changing information because ISs tend to continuously evolve by modifying not only their content but also their query capabilities and interface and by joining or leaving the environment at any time. In this paper, we outline our position on issues related to the challenging new problem of how to adapt views in such evolving environments. We first present a taxonomy of view adaptation problems by describing the dimensions along which view adaptation problems can be classified. Based on this taxonomy, we identify a new view adaptation problem for view evolution in the context of ISs capability changes, which we call View Synchronization. We also outline the Evolvable View Environment (EVE) that we propose as framework for solving the view sy...

Adaption of data warehouses is a critical task in dynamic environments such as the WWW where the underlying information sources (IS) change not only their contents but also their schemas. While current view technology assumes that the ISs do not change their schema, our Evolvable View Environment (EVE) project addresses this problem by evolving the view definitions affected by IS schema changes, which we coin view synchronization. In EVE, the view synchronizer rewrites the view definitions by replacing view components with suitable components from other ISs. However, after such a view redefinition process, the view extents, if materialized, must also be brought up-to-date. In this paper, we propose strategies to address this incremental adaptation of the view extent after view synchronization. One key idea of our approach is to regard the complex changes done to a view definition after synchronization as atomic units and to handle them in one optimized batch process, instead of treatin...