The TempIS Project: Performance Analysis of Temporal Queries

Temporal databases maintaining history data on line extend conventional databases with capabilities for historical queries and rollback operations. To analyze the performance of temporal queries on the database using various access methods, the authors propose a model consisting of four transformations through a series of intermediate expressions based on characteristics of database/relations and storage devices. They validate the model by comparing the I/O cost estimated from the analysis using the model with the actual cost measured from a prototype temporal DBMS. Since conventional databases are subsets of temporal databases, the model can also be used to analyze the performance of conventional databases. Keywords: Transformations(Mathematics); Access; Data storage systems; Computer files.