Approximating block accesses in database organizations

  • Authors:
  • S. B. Yao

  • Affiliations:
  • Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN

  • Venue:
  • Communications of the ACM
  • Year:
  • 1977

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Abstract

When data records are grouped into blocks in secondary storage, it is frequently necessary to estimate the number of blocks XD accessed for a given query. In a recent paper [1], Cardenas gave the expression XD = m(1 - (1 - 1/m)k), (1) assuming that there are n records divided into m blocks and that the k records satisfying the query are distributed uniformly among the m blocks. The derivation of the expression was left to the reader as an exercise.