A GPU Algorithm for Detecting Contextual Outliers in Multiple Concurrent Data Streams

Abstract

A data stream is an infinite sequence of data points generated from a source continuously at a fast rate, which is characterized by the transiency of the data points, the temporal relationship among the data points, concept drift, and multi-dimensionality of data points. Outlier detection in data streams thus needs to deal with the characteristics of Big Data applications such as volume, velocity, and variety. The problem of detecting outliers in multiple concurrent data streams introduces additional challenges to the problem. In this paper, we propose a parallel outlier detection technique CODS to detect Contextual Outliers in multiple concurrent independent multi-dimensional Data Streams using a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). The proposed algorithm addresses all the aforesaid characteristics of data streams. A set of experiments demonstrates reasonable outlier detection accuracy and scalability of CODS with the number of data streams.