Logical Index Scheme Inwards Cosmos Db

This shipping service zooms into the logical indexing subsystem mentioned inwards my previous shipping service on "Schema-Agnostic Indexing amongst Azure Cosmos DB". 

With the advent of large data, nosotros confront a large data-integration problem. It is really difficult to enforce a schema (structure/type system) on data, together with irregularities together with entropy is a fact of life. You volition live on amend off if you lot convey this equally a given, rather than pretend you lot are really organized, you lot tin foresee all required fields inwards your application/database, together with every branch of your organisation volition live on disciplined plenty to occupation the same format to collect/store data.

A piece employed yesteryear relational databases is to add together lean novel columns to conform for possibilities together with to shop a superset of the schemas. However, after you lot invoke an alter-table on a large information set, you lot realize this doesn't scale well, together with start searching for schema-agnostic solutions.

Achieving schema agnosticism

As nosotros discussed inwards the previous post, JSON provides a solution for easier schema management. JSON's type scheme is elementary together with lightweight (in contrast to XML) together with is self-documenting. JSON supports a strict subset of the type systems of Javascript together with many modern programming languages. Today it is the glossa franca of Internet together with is natively supported inwards most languages.

Using JSON helps NoSQL datastores to operate without a schema for information ingestion purposes together with for possible application changes inwards the future. But this doesn't automatically brand them fully schema agnostic. For querying the database, those solutions nonetheless require a schema. The user is typically asked to supply indexing fields, together with the queries are performed on those indexes.

The Cosmos DB approach to achieving amount schema agnosticism is yesteryear automatically indexing everything upon information ingest together with allowing the users to query for anything without having to bargain amongst schema or index management.

The enquiry thence becomes: what is a goodness indexing construction to solve the fully schema-agnostic querying problem?

Be the tree

Relational databases lead keep been doing indexing for one-half century, but indexing at that spot is highly optimized for relational schema databases together with has limitations. Often a B-tree index per column is employed. While this achieves really fast reading together with querying performance, it becomes inadequate for high book writes on large data. Newly inserted information would demand to live on indexed for each column inwards the schema using B-trees together with volition drive write amplification problems. A newly inserted column or alter inwards schema would Pb to updating all the leafs.

Instead of creating an index tree for each column, Cosmos DB employs ane index for the whole database account, i.e., the Cosmos DB container (e.g., a table, a collection or a graph). This one-index-tree-to-rule-them-all grows equally novel documents acquire added to the container. Since the schema variance is often not  really wild, the publish of shared paths over intermediate schema nodes stay modest compared to the publish of leafage nodes (instance values). This means the index tree achieves efficiency for updates upon novel data/schema insertion together with enables for searching (range or signal query) for whatever arbitrary schema or value inwards the container.

I attempt to explicate how this plant inwards the residuum of the post. First I'd similar to clarify that nosotros limit ourselves to the logical organisation of the indexing, together with don't transcend downwardly the stack to hash out physical organisation of the index structures. At the logical layer, nosotros don't lead keep to recall close the diverse B-tree implementations inwards the physical layer: nosotros volition exactly care for the index organisation equally a sorted-map construction (e.g., equally inwards sorted map inwards Java). At the physical organisation layer, to score fifty-fifty to a greater extent than efficiency optimizations, Cosmos DB employs the Bw-tree information structure implementation of this logical index on flash/SSDs. There are many other efficient implementations of B-trees for different storage devices together with scenarios based on write-ahead-log together with log-structure-merge-tree ideas.

I would similar to give cheers Shireesh Thota at Cosmos DB for giving me a crash course of report on the logical indexing topic. Without his clear explanations, I would live on grappling amongst these concepts for a long long time.


Logical indexing

In our previous post, nosotros discussed how the tree representation of the JSON documents allows the database engine to care for the construction of the document equally good equally the illustration values homogeneously.

We also introduced the index tree that is constructed out of the marriage ceremony of all of the trees representing the private documents within the container. Each node of the index tree is an index entry containing the label together with seat values, called the term, together with the ids of the documents containing the term, called the postings.

The logical index organization

For terms effective persistence together with lookup, the index tree needs to live on converted into a storage efficient representation.  At the logical indexing layer, CosmosDB maps the paths inwards the index tree to key-value tuples. The value consists of the postings list of the encoded document (or document fragment) ids. The fundamental consists of the term representing the encoded path information of the node/path inwards the index tree, concatenated amongst a posting entry selector (PES) that helps segmentation the postings horizontally.

This way, the terms are mapped to the corresponding Doc IDs (i.e., postings) containing them. The resulting sorted map enables the query processing to seat the documents that correspond the query predicates really quickly. On this sorted map, byte compare is employed for enabling arrive at queries. There is also a contrary path representation to enable efficient signal queries. As we'll run across below, the logical indexing has a directly touching on what form of queries the database tin support.

We hash out how Cosmos DB represents the terms together with the postings efficiently inwards the adjacent 2 sections.

Representing terms efficiently


Cosmos DB uses a combination of partial forrad path representation for paths to enable arrive at querying support, and  partial contrary path representation to enable equality/hash support.

The terms for forrad paths are byte encoded to live on able to enable arrive at queries such equally SELECT * FROM source r WHERE r.Country < "Germany". Yes, you lot read that right, you lot tin compare at the string level, because strings are byte-encoded to allow that.

The terms for the contrary paths are hash encoded for efficient signal querying such equally SELECT * FROM source r WHERE r.location[0].country = "France".

Finally, the path representations also allow wild carte queries such equally SELECT c FROM c JOIN w IN c.location WHERE w = "France". This is achieved yesteryear bunching the forrad together with backward paths ever inwards iii segments, such equally location/0/city together with 0/city/"Paris" rather than using the amount path $/location/0/city/"Paris".  This is similar the the n-gram stance the search engines use. This also reduces the storage terms of the index.

Partial forrad path encoding scheme. To enable efficient arrive at together with spatial querying, the partial forrad path encoding is done differently for numeric together with non-numeric labels. For non-numeric values, each of the iii segment paths are encoded based on all the characters. The to the lowest degree important byte of the resultant hash is assigned for the showtime together with mo segments. For the concluding segment, lexicographical social club is preserved yesteryear storing the amount string or a smaller prefix based on the precision specified for the path.
For the numeric segment appearing equally the showtime or mo segments, a exceptional hash business office is applied to optimize for the non-leaf numeric values. This hash business office exploits the fact that most non-leaf numeric values (e.g. enumerations, array indices etc.) are oftentimes concentrated betwixt 0-100 together with rarely incorporate negative or large values. A numeric segment occurring inwards the 3rd seat is treated specially: the most important n bytes (n is the numeric precision specified for the path) of the 8 byte hash are applied, to save order.

Partial contrary path encoding scheme.  To enable signal querying, the term generated inwards the contrary order, amongst the leafage having higher publish of bits inwards the term, placed first. This scheme also serves wildcard queries similar finding whatever node that contains the value "Paris", since the leafage node is the showtime segment.

Representing posting lists efficiently

The postings listing captures the document ids of all the documents which incorporate the given term. The posting listing is bitmap compressed for efficient querying/retrieval equally well. In social club to correspond a postings listing dynamically (i.e. without a fixed sized/static scheme or pre-reserved space), compactly together with inwards a mode amenable to computing fast laid operations (e.g., to attempt out for document presence during query processing), Cosmos DB uses the below 2 techniques.

Partitioning a postings list. Each insertion of a novel document to a container is assigned a monotonically increasing document ID. The postings listing for a given term consists of a variable length listing of postings entries partitioned yesteryear postings entry selector (PES). A PES is a variable length (up to seven bytes), offset into the postings entry. The publish of PES bytes is a business office of the publish of documents inwards a container. The publish of postings entries --for a given size of a PES-- is a business office of document frequency for the document id arrive at which falls within the PES range. Document ids within 0-16K volition occupation the showtime postings entry, document ids from 16K-4M volition occupation the adjacent 256 posting entries, together with thence on. For instance, a container amongst 2M documents volition non occupation to a greater extent than than 1 byte of PES together with volition alone ever occupation upwards to 128 postings entries within a postings list.

Dynamic encoding of posting entries. Within a unmarried segmentation (pointed yesteryear a PES), each document needs alone fourteen bits which tin live on captured amongst a brusk word. However, Cosmos DB also optimizes this. Depending on the distribution, postings words within a postings entry are encoded dynamically using a laid of encoding schemes including (but non restricted to) diverse bitmap encoding schemes inspired primarily yesteryear WAH (Word-Aligned Hybrid). The gist stance is to save the best encoding for dense distributions (like WAH) but to efficiently locomote for lean distributions (unlike WAH).

Customizing the index

The default indexing policy automatically indexes all properties of all documents. Developers tin lead certainly documents to live on excluded or included inwards the index at the fourth dimension of inserting or replacing them to the container. Developers tin also lead to include or exclude certainly paths (including wildcard patterns) to live on indexed across documents.

Cosmos DB also supports configuring the consistency of indexing on a container.

Consistent indexing is the default policy. Here the queries on a given container follow the same consistency score equally specified for the point-reads (i.e. strong, bounded-staleness, session or eventual). The index is updated synchronously equally component of the document update (i.e. insert, replace, update, together with delete of a document inwards a container). Consistent indexing supports consistent queries at the terms of possible reduction inwards write throughput. This reduction is a business office of the unique paths that demand to live on indexed together with the consistency level. The consistent indexing mode is designed for "write quickly, query immediately" workloads.

To allow maximum document ingestion throughput, a container tin live on configured amongst lazy consistency; important queries are eventually consistent. The index is updated asynchronously when a given replica of a container's segmentation is quiescent. For "ingest now, query later" workloads requiring unhindered document ingestion, the lazy indexing mode is to a greater extent than suitable.

MAD questions

1. Is this also specialized information?
I am a distributed systems/algorithms person. Logical indexing is a specialized database topic. Does agreement this assistance me acquire a amend distributed systems researcher?

I would fighting yes.  First of all, developing expertise inwards multiple branches, beingness a Pi-shaped academician, provides advantages. Aside from that, learning novel things stretches your encephalon together with makes it easier to acquire other things.

2. How is filtering done within a document?
Cosmos DB represents documents also equally binary encodings for efficient storage together with querying. When a query returns documents that correspond the query predicates, instead of filtering records within the document, Cosmos DB uses the binary encoding features together with performs byte-compares to skim within the document speedily to jump/skip over irrelevant parts quickly. A lot of deduplication is also employed at these encoding. In the coming weeks, I may delve inwards to the physical organisation of the index together with documents, but I demand to rail downwardly to a greater extent than or less other proficient to assistance me amongst that.

For topics that are also exterior of my expertise it is really helpful to acquire a showtime introduction from an expert. Learning from Shireesh was really fun. An proficient makes fifty-fifty the most complicated topics await slowly together with understandable. This is an interesting epitome shift which you lot volition lead keep old if you lot haven't already: When you lot don't sympathise a topic, often the job is, it is non presented really competently. The corollary to this epiphany is that if you lot are unable to explicate something but together with inwards an accessible way, you lot haven't mastered it yet.

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