Database cost analysis: a top-down approach

  • Authors:
  • T. H. Merrett

  • Affiliations:
  • McGill University

  • Venue:
  • SIGMOD '77 Proceedings of the 1977 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of data
  • Year:
  • 1977

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Abstract

A top-down approach is proposed for cost analysis for database and information system design. General principles are given which allow the analyst either to estimate rapidly the costs of a wide variety of alternatives or to investigate fewer possibilities in great detail. Techniques are developed which can be used at any level of the iterative design process - at the early stages or at the detailed phase of specific design. The paper applies the methods to the basic categories of file cost at the simpler levels of analysis and refers to the literature for more sophisticated analyses, which can be done within the framework provided here. Among the specific results developed are: the extension of a widely-used hit ratio formula to non-uniform usage distribution; the introduction of the "distribution of depths" for serial accesses; a general activity analysis and a volatility analysis for indexed sequential files.