An active system for dynamic vertical partitioning of relational databases

Vertical partitioning is a well known technique to improve query response time in relational databases. This consists in dividing a table into a set of fragments of attributes according to the queries run against the table. In dynamic systems the queries tend to change with time, so it is needed a dynamic vertical partitioning technique which adapts the fragments according to the changes in query patterns in order to avoid long query response time. In this paper, we propose an active system for dynamic vertical partitioning of relational databases, called DYVEP (DYnamic VErtical Partitioning). DYVEP uses active rules to vertically fragment and refragment a database without intervention of a database administrator (DBA), maintaining an acceptable query response time even when the query patterns in the database suffer changes. Experiments with the TPC-H benchmark demonstrate efficient query response time.