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Rice University

An Experimental Comparison of Complex Objects Implementations in Big Data Systems

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Many data management and analytics systems support complex objects. Dataflow platforms such as Spark and Flink allow programmers to manipulate sets consisting of objects from a host programming language, often Java. Document databases such as MongoDB make use of hierarchical interchange formats--most popularly JSON--which embody a data model where individual records can themselves contain sets of records. Systems such as Dremel and AsterixDB allow complex nesting of data structures. The desire to support such complex objects forces a system designer to ask: how should complex objects be implemented in a modern data management system? In this thesis, over a suite of representative data management tasks, I experimentally evaluate the performance implications of a wide variety of complex object implementations. The choice of object implementation can have a profound effect on performance. For example, the same external sort to perform a duplicate removal can take anywhere between a half hour to fourteen and a half hours depending upon the complex object implementation. A corollary is that a bad object implementation can doom system performance. In addition, we reaffirm the value of the classical database way of storing complex objects - where there is no distinction between the in-memory and over-the-wire data representation, within a modern big data system.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
Masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Engineering
Grantor
Rice University
Year dc:date.issued
2017

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Sikdar, Sourav
Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
  • Jermaine, Christopher

Subjects

dc:subject × 3

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.
Language dc:language.iso
eng

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier.uri
https://hdl.handle.net/1911/96019
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:repository.rice.edu:1911/96019

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Rice University
Base URL
repository.rice.edu/server/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Sikdar, Sourav. An Experimental Comparison of Complex Objects Implementations in Big Data Systems. Masters thesis, Rice University, 2017. https://hdl.handle.net/1911/96019