Parallel construction of data cubes on multi-core multi-disk platforms

On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP) has become one of the most powerful and prominent technologies for knowledge discovery in VLDB (Very Large Database) environments. Central to the OLAP paradigm is the data cube, a multi dimensional hierarchy of aggregate values that provides a rich analytical model for decision support. Various sequential algorithms for the efficient generation of the data cube have appeared in the literature. However, given the size of contemporary data warehousing repositories, multi-processor solutions are crucial for the massive computational demands of current and future OLAP systems. In this paper we discuss the development of MCMD-CUBE, a new parallel data cube construction method for multi-core processors with multiple disks. We present experimental results for a Sandy Bridge multi-core processor with four parallel disks. Our experiments indicate that MCMD-CUBE achieves very close to linear speedup. A critical part of our MCMD-CUBE method is parallel sorting. We developed a new parallel sorting method termed MCMD-SORT for multi-core processors with multiple disks which outperforms other previous methods