@inproceedings{DBLP:conf/vldb/LorieY89, author = {Raymond A. Lorie and Honesty C. Young}, editor = {Peter M. G. Apers and Gio Wiederhold}, title = {A Low Communication Sort Algorithm for a Parallel Database Machine}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Very Large Data Bases, August 22-25, 1989, Amsterdam, The Netherlands}, publisher = {Morgan Kaufmann}, year = {1989}, isbn = {1-55860-101-5}, pages = {125-134}, ee = {db/conf/vldb/LorieY89.html}, crossref = {DBLP:conf/vldb/89}, bibsource = {DBLP, http://dblp.uni-trier.de} }
The paper considers the prcblem of sorting a file in a distributed system. The file is originally distributed on many sites, and the result of the sort isneeded at another site called the "host". The particular environment that we assume is a backend parallel database machine, but the work is applicable to distributed database systems as well.
After discussing the drawbacks of several existing algorithms, we propose a novel algorithm that exhibits complete parallelism during the sort, merge, and return-to- host phases. In addition, this algorithm decreases the amount of inter-processor communication compared to existing parallel sort algorithms. We describe an implementation of the algorithm, present performance measurements, and use a validated model to demonstrate its scalability. We also discuss the effect of an uneven distribution of data among the various processors.
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