The M-OLAP cube selection problem: A hyper-polymorphic algorithm approach

Abstract

OLAP systems depend heavily on the materialization of multidimensional structures to speed-up queries, whose appropriate selection constitutes the cube selection problem. However, the recently proposed distribution of OLAP structures emerges to answer new globalization's requirements, capturing the known advantages of distributed databases. But this hardens the search for solutions, especially due to the inherent heterogeneity, imposing an extra characteristic of the algorithm that must be used: adaptability. Here the emerging concept known as hyper-heuristic can be a solution. In fact, having an algorithm where several (meta-)heuristics may be selected under the control of a heuristic has an intrinsic adaptive behavior. This paper presents a hyper-heuristic polymorphic algorithm used to solve the extended cube selection and allocation problem generated in M-OLAP architectures. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.