A Model for Ranking and Selecting Integrity Tests in Distributed Database

Checking the consistency of a database state generally involves the execution of integrity tests (query that returns the value true or false) on the database, which verify whether the database is satisfying its constraints or not. Many types of integrity tests have been proposed and presented in the literature. The previous works in the area of checking integrity constraints in distributed databases have suggested that sufficient tests should be explored as these tests are cheaper than the complete tests and the initial constraints due to their characteristics which can be executed at the local (target) site. This paper presents the various types of integrity tests as reported in previous works and discusses how these tests can significantly improve the performance of the constraint checking mechanisms without limiting to certain type of test as suggested by previous researchers in this area. Having these alternatives of tests, then selecting the most suitable test becomes an issue that needs to be tackled. Thus, we introduce a model to rank and to select the suitable test to be evaluated given several alternative tests. The model uses the amount of data transferred across the network, the number of sites involved, and the amount of data accessed as the parameters in deciding the suitable test.