Tight Lower Bounds for Query Processing on Streaming and External Memory Data
Martin Grohe, Christoph Koch, Nicole Schweikardt

TL;DR
This paper establishes fundamental lower bounds for query processing in streaming and external memory models, demonstrating the limitations of scans, joins, sorting, and XPath evaluation under constrained resources.
Contribution
It introduces a strict hierarchy based on the number of data scans and proves tight bounds for query evaluation complexity in external memory models.
Findings
Hierarchy of data scans impacts processing feasibility
Joins and sorting are infeasible with limited memory and scans
Tight bounds for XPath evaluation and filtering
Abstract
We study a clean machine model for external memory and stream processing. We show that the number of scans of the external data induces a strict hierarchy (as long as work space is sufficiently small, e.g., polylogarithmic in the size of the input). We also show that neither joins nor sorting are feasible if the product of the number of scans of the external memory and the size of the internal memory buffers is sufficiently small, e.g., of size . We also establish tight bounds for the complexity of XPath evaluation and filtering.
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Taxonomy
TopicsComplexity and Algorithms in Graphs · Distributed systems and fault tolerance · Computability, Logic, AI Algorithms
