Mobile Join Operators for Restricted Sources

Abstract

We consider the problem of query execution when there is limited access to the relations, i.e. when binding patterns require values to be specified in order to get data from the relation. This problem is common in virtual data integration systems where there are heterogeneous sources with various restricted access patterns and query capabilities. Another problem is the lack of the statistical information about the sources and occurrence of unpredictable events. We introduce two mobile join operators, MDJoin and SMDJoin which are designed for restricted sources and implemented using ′mobile agents′ in order to benefit from their autonomous and reactive characteristics. Mobile operators of restricted sources are capable to deal with restricted sources and react to the variations between the compile‐time estimations and run‐time computations of data during query execution. The difference between the two new query operators lies in their level of adaptation ability to the execution environment. Performance results show that mobile agent‐based approach at operator level can lead to a significant reduction in response time with restricted sources.