Tree-Structured Indexes

Lecture 17
R & G Chapter 9

“If I had eight hours to chop down a

tree, I'd spend six sharpening my ax.”

Abraham Lincoln
 Administrivia
• Homeworks re-arranged

• Midterm Exam Graded

– Scores on-line
– Key available on-line

IV V
I II III Query Buffer VI VII
Query Sorting Joins Opt Mgmt FDs ER Total Adjust w/EC

Total 24 10 6 10 10 20 20 100

Avg 12.5 7.5 2.2 2.4 8.1 12.6 11.1 56.3 60.0

Min 4.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 3.0 23.5 26.1 26.1

Max 21.0 10.0 6.0 8.5 10.0 20.0 19.0 82.0 86.7 90.7

StdDev 3.5 2.9 1.6 2.1 2.1 4.4 3.7 10.6 10.8
Review
• Last week:
– How Internet Apps use Databases
– How to access Databases from Programs
– How to extend Databases with Programs

• This week:
– Tree Indexes (HW4 or 5?)
– Hash Indexes

• Next week:
– Transactions
– Concurrency Control
Today: B-Tree Indexes

• Discussed costs/benefits in lecture 5

• Today more detail:

– ISAM, an old fashioned Tree Index
– B-Trees, most common DBMS tree index
Introduction
• Recall: 3 alternatives for data entries k*:
• Data record with key value k
• <k, rid of data record with search key value k>
• <k, list of rids of data records with search key k>
• Choice is orthogonal to the indexing technique
used to locate data entries k*.
• Tree-structured indexing techniques support
both range searches and equality searches.
• ISAM: static structure; B+ tree: dynamic,
adjusts gracefully under inserts and deletes.
• ISAM = ???
Indexed Sequential Access Method
 A Note of Caution

• ISAM is an old-fashioned idea

– B+-trees are usually better, as we’ll see
• Though not always

• But, it’s a good place to start

– Simpler than B+-tree, but many of the same ideas

• Upshot
– Don’t brag about being an ISAM expert on your resume
– Do understand how they work, tradeoffs with B+-trees
Range Searches
• ``Find all students with gpa > 3.0’’
– If data is in sorted file, do binary search to find first such
student, then scan to find others.
– Cost of binary search can be quite high.
• Simple idea: Create an `index’ file.
– Level of indirection again!

k1 k2 kN Index File

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page N Data File

 Can do binary search on (smaller) index file!

 index entry

ISAM
P K P K 2 P K m Pm
0 1 1 2

• Index file may still be quite large. But we can

apply the idea repeatedly!

Non-leaf
Pages

Leaf
Pages
Overflow
page
Primary pages

 Leaf pages contain data entries.

Example ISAM Tree

• Each node can hold 2 entries; no need for

`next-leaf-page’ pointers. (Why?)
Root
40

20 33 51 63

10* 15* 20* 27* 33* 37* 40* 46* 51* 55* 63* 97*
 Comments on ISAM
Data Pages

• File creation: Leaf (data) pages allocated Index Pages

sequentially, sorted by search key. Then index
pages allocated. Then space for overflow pages.
Overflow pages
• Index entries: <search key value, page id>; they
`direct’ search for data entries, which are in leaf pages.

• Search: Start at root; use key comparisons to go to leaf.

Cost  log F N ; F = # entries/index pg, N = # leaf pgs

• Insert: Find leaf where data entry belongs, put it there.

(Could be on an overflow page).

• Delete: Find and remove from leaf; if empty overflow

page, de-allocate.

 Static tree structure: inserts/deletes affect only leaf pages.

Example ISAM Tree

• Each node can hold 2 entries; no need for

`next-leaf-page’ pointers. (Why?)
Root
40

20 33 51 63

10* 15* 20* 27* 33* 37* 40* 46* 51* 55* 63* 97*
 After Inserting 23*, 48*, 41*, 42* ...
Root
Index 40

Pages

20 33 51 63

Primary
Leaf 10* 15* 20* 27* 33* 37* 40* 46* 51* 55* 63* 97*
Pages

23* 48* 41*

Overflow
Pages
42*
 ... then Deleting 42*, 51*, 97*
Root
40

20 33 51 63

10* 15* 20* 27* 33* 37* 40* 46* 55* 63*

23* 48* 41*

 Note that 51 appears in index levels, but 51* not in leaf!

ISAM ---- Issues?

• Pros
– ????

• Cons
– ????
 B+ Tree: The Most Widely Used Index
• Insert/delete at log F N cost; keep tree height-
balanced. (F = fanout, N = # leaf pages)
• Minimum 50% occupancy (except for root). Each
node contains d <= m <= 2d entries. The
parameter d is called the order of the tree.
• Supports equality and range-searches efficiently.

Index Entries
(Direct search)

Data Entries
("Sequence set")
 Example B+ Tree

• Search begins at root, and key comparisons

direct it to a leaf (as in ISAM).
• Search for 5*, 15*, all data entries >= 24* ...

Root

13 17 24 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 14* 16* 19* 20* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

 Based on the search for 15*, we know it is not in the tree!

B+ Trees in Practice

• Typical order: 100. Typical fill-factor: 67%.

– average fanout = 133
• Typical capacities:
– Height 4: 1334 = 312,900,700 records
– Height 3: 1333 = 2,352,637 records
• Can often hold top levels in buffer pool:
– Level 1 = 1 page = 8 Kbytes
– Level 2 = 133 pages = 1 Mbyte
– Level 3 = 17,689 pages = 133 MBytes
Inserting a Data Entry into a B+ Tree
• Find correct leaf L.
• Put data entry onto L.
– If L has enough space, done!
– Else, must split L (into L and a new node L2)
• Redistribute entries evenly, copy up middle key.
• Insert index entry pointing to L2 into parent of L.
• This can happen recursively
– To split index node, redistribute entries evenly, but
push up middle key. (Contrast with leaf splits.)
• Splits “grow” tree; root split increases height.
– Tree growth: gets wider or one level taller at top.
 Example B+ Tree - Inserting 8*

Root

13 17 24 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 14* 16* 19* 20* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*
 Example B+ Tree - Inserting 8*

Root
17

5 13 24 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 19* 20* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

 Notice that root was split, leading to increase in height.

 In this example, we can avoid split by re-distributing
entries; however, this is usually not done in practice.
 Inserting 8* into Example B+ Tree
Entry to be inserted in parent node.
• Observe how

…
5 (Note that 5 is
s copied up and
minimum continues to appear in the leaf.)

occupancy is
guaranteed in 2* 3* 5* 7* 8*
both leaf and
index pg splits.
• Note difference
between copy-
Entry to be inserted in parent node.
up and push-up; 17 (Note that 17 is pushed up and only
be sure you appears once in the index. Contrast

…
this with a leaf split.)
understand the
reasons for this.
5 13 24 30
 Deleting a Data Entry from a B+ Tree
• Start at root, find leaf L where entry belongs.

• Remove the entry.

– If L is at least half-full, done!
– If L has only d-1 entries,
• Try to re-distribute, borrowing from sibling (adjacent
node with same parent as L).
• If re-distribution fails, merge L and sibling.

• If merge occurred, must delete entry (pointing to L

or sibling) from parent of L.

• Merge could propagate to root, decreasing height.

 Example Tree (including 8*)
Delete 19* and 20* ...

Root
17

5 13 24 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 19* 20* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

• Deleting 19* is easy.

 Example Tree (including 8*)
Delete 19* and 20* ...

Root
17

5 13 27 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 22* 24* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

• Deleting 19* is easy.

• Deleting 20* is done with re-distribution.
Notice how middle key is copied up.
 ... And Then Deleting 24*
• Must merge.
30
• Observe `toss’ of
index entry (on right),
and `pull down’ of 22* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

index entry (below).

Root
5 13 17 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 22* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*

 Example of Non-leaf Re-distribution
• Tree is shown below during deletion of 24*. (What
could be a possible initial tree?)
• In contrast to previous example, can re-distribute
entry from left child of root to right child.

Root

22

5 13 17 20 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 17* 18* 20* 21* 22* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*
 After Re-distribution
• Intuitively, entries are re-distributed by `pushing
through’ the splitting entry in the parent node.
• It suffices to re-distribute index entry with key 20;
we’ve re-distributed 17 as well for illustration.
Root

17

5 13 20 22 30

2* 3* 5* 7* 8* 14* 16* 17* 18* 20* 21* 22* 27* 29* 33* 34* 38* 39*
 Prefix Key Compression
• Important to increase fan-out. (Why?)
• Key values in index entries only `direct traffic’;
can often compress them.
– E.g., If we have adjacent index entries with search
key values Dannon Yogurt, David Smith and
Devarakonda Murthy, we can abbreviate David Smith
to Dav. (The other keys can be compressed too ...)
• Is this correct? Not quite! What if there is a data entry
Davey Jones? (Can only compress David Smith to Davi)
• In general, while compressing, must leave each index entry
greater than every key value (in any subtree) to its left.
• Insert/delete must be suitably modified.
 Bulk Loading of a B+ Tree
• If we have a large collection of records, and we
want to create a B+ tree on some field, doing so
by repeatedly inserting records is very slow.
– Also leads to minimal leaf utilization --- why?
• Bulk Loading can be done much more efficiently.
• Initialization: Sort all data entries, insert pointer
to first (leaf) page in a new (root) page.
Root
Sorted pages of data entries; not yet in B+ tree

3* 4* 6* 9* 10* 11* 12* 13* 20* 22* 23* 31* 35* 36* 38* 41* 44*
 Bulk Loading (Contd.)
Root 10 20

• Index entries for leaf

pages always entered Data entry pages
6 12 23 35
into right-most index not yet in B+ tree
page just above leaf
level. When this fills
up, it splits. (Split 3* 4* 6* 9* 10* 11* 12* 13* 20*22* 23* 31* 35* 36* 38*41* 44*

may go up right-most
path to the root.)
• Much faster than Root 20

repeated inserts,
especially when one 10 35 Data entry pages
considers locking! not yet in B+ tree

6 12 23 38

3* 4* 6* 9* 10* 11* 12* 13* 20*22* 23* 31* 35* 36* 38*41* 44*
Summary of Bulk Loading

• Option 1: multiple inserts.

– Slow.
– Does not give sequential storage of leaves.
• Option 2: Bulk Loading
– Has advantages for concurrency control.
– Fewer I/Os during build.
– Leaves will be stored sequentially (and linked, of
course).
– Can control “fill factor” on pages.
 A Note on `Order’
• Order (d) concept replaced by physical space
criterion in practice (`at least half-full’).
– Index pages can typically hold many more entries
than leaf pages.
– Variable sized records and search keys mean different
nodes will contain different numbers of entries.
– Even with fixed length fields, multiple records with the
same search key value (duplicates) can lead to
variable-sized data entries (if we use Alternative (3)).
• Many real systems are even sloppier than this ---
only reclaim space when a page is completely
empty.
 Summary
• Tree-structured indexes are ideal for range-
searches, also good for equality searches.
• ISAM is a static structure.
– Only leaf pages modified; overflow pages needed.
– Overflow chains can degrade performance unless size of
data set and data distribution stay constant.
• B+ tree is a dynamic structure.
– Inserts/deletes leave tree height-balanced; log F N cost.
– High fanout (F) means depth rarely more than 3 or 4.
– Almost always better than maintaining a sorted file.
 Summary (Contd.)
– Typically, 67% occupancy on average.
– Usually preferable to ISAM, adjusts to growth gracefully.
– If data entries are data records, splits can change rids!
• Key compression increases fanout, reduces height.
• Bulk loading can be much faster than repeated
inserts for creating a B+ tree on a large data set.
• Most widely used index in database management
systems because of its versatility. One of the most
optimized components of a DBMS.