The Impact of Global Clustering on Spatial Database Systems

Global clustering has rarely been investigated in the area of spatial dambase systems although dramatic performance improvements can be achieved by using suitable techniques. In this paper, we propose a simple approach to global clustering called cluster organization. We will demonstrate that this cluster organization leads to considerable performance improvements without any algorithmic ovedxad. Based on real geographic data, we perfm a detailed empirical performance evaluation and compare the clusterorganixation to other organization models not using global clustering. We will show that global clustering speeds up the processing of window queries as well as spatial joins without decreasing the performanceoftbeinsertionofnewobjectsaodofse, lective queries such as point queries. lhe spatial join is sped up by a factor of about 4, whereas non-selective window queries are accelerated by even higher speed up factors.