A generic and efficient framework for spatial indexing on flash-based solid state drives

Abstract

Speeding up the spatial query processing on flash-based Solid State Drives (SSDs) has become a core problem in spatial database applications, and has been carried out aided by flash-aware spatial indices. Although there are some existing flash-aware spatial indices, they do not exploit all the benefits of SSDs, leading to loss of efficiency. In this paper, we propose a new generic and efficient Framework for spatial INDexing on SSDs, called eFIND. It takes into account all the intrinsic characteristics of SSDs by employing (i) a write buffer to avoid random writes; (ii) a read buffer to decrease the overhead of random reads; (iii) a temporal control to avoid interleaved reads and writes; (iv) a flushing policy based on the characteristics of the indexed spatial objects; and (v) a log-structured approach to provide data durability. Performance tests showed that eFIND is very efficient. Compared to existing indices, eFIND improved the construction of spatial indices from 22% up to 68% and the spatial query processing from 3% up to 50%.