PARALLELISM IN RELATIONAL DATABASE-MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

In order to provide real-time responses to complex queries involving l arge volumes of data, it has become necessary to exploit parallelism i n query processing. This paper addresses the issues and solutions rela ting to intraquery parallelism in a relational database management sys tem (DBMS). We provide a broad framework for the study of the numerous issues that need to be addressed in supporting parallelism efficientl y and flexibly. The alternatives for a parallel architecture system ar e discussed, followed by the focus on how a query can be parallelized and how that affects load balancing of the different tasks created. Th e final part of the paper contains information about how the IBM DATAB ASE 2TM (DB2(R)) Version 3 product provides support for I/O parallelis m to reduce response time for data-intensive queries.