Query and Update Efficient B+-Tree Based Indexing of Moving Objects

A number of emerging applications of data management technology involve the monitoring and querying of large quantities of continuous variables, e.g., the positions of mobile service users, termed moving objects. In such applications, large quantities of state samples obtained via sensors are streamed to a database. Indexes for moving objects must support queries efficiently, but must also support frequent updates. Indexes based on minimum bounding regions (MBRs) such as the R-tree exhibit high concurrency overheads during node splitting, and each individual update is known to be quite costly. This motivates the design of a solution that enables the B -tree to manage moving objects. We represent moving-object locations as vectors that are timestamped based on their update time. By applying a novel linearization technique to these values, it is possible to index the resulting values using a single B -tree that partitions values according to their timestamp and otherwise preserves spatial proximity. We develop algorithms for range and nearest neighbor queries, as well as continuous queries. The proposal can be grafted into existing database systems cost effectively. An extensive experimental study explores the performance characteristics of the proposal and also shows that it is capable of substantially outperforming the R-tree based TPRtree for both single and concurrent access scenarios. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the VLDB copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Very Large Data Base Endowment. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or special permission from the Endowment. Proceedings of the 30th VLDB Conference, Toronto, Canada, 2004