X-Device Query Processing by Bitwise Distribution

The diversity of hardware components within a single system calls for strategies for efficient cross-device data processing. For exam- ple, existing approaches to CPU/GPU co-processing distribute individual relational operators to the “most appropriate” device. While pleasantly simple, this strategy has a number of problems: it may leave the “inappropriate” devices idle while overloading the “appropriate” device and putting a high pressure on the PCI bus. To address these issues we distribute data among the devices by par- tially decomposing relations at the granularity of individual bits. Each of the resulting bit-partitions is stored and processed on one of the available devices. Using this strategy, we implemented a processor for spatial range queries that makes efficient use of all available devices. The performance gains achieved indicate that bitwise distribution makes a good cross-device processing strategy.