Experiences Building the Open OODB Query Optimizer

Summary: Open OODB's query optimizer is the first working object-DB optimizer built on a framework (algebra, execution, rules, cost) with a materialize operator for path expressions. Experiments show plans competitive with prior methods; built with the Volcano Optimizer Generator for rapid development on non-standard data models. (summarized by gpt-5-nano on Feb 09 2026)

Paper ID: h25daf6479c8cdacb
Venue: SIGMOD
Year: 1993
Pagerank: 0.00010835212
Overall Rank: 1,380 | 90.76%
DOI: 10.1145/170035.170080

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

1. Jose A. Blakeley (Texas Instruments)
2. William J. McKenna (University of Colorado Boulder)
3. Goetz Graefe (Portland State University)

BibTeX Citation

@inproceedings{blakeley_sigmod93,
        title = {{Experiences Building the Open OODB Query Optimizer}},
        author = {Blakeley, Jose A. and McKenna, William J. and Graefe, Goetz},
        series = {{SIGMOD} '93},
        booktitle = {Proceedings of the {ACM} {SIGMOD} International Conference on Management of Data},
        publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
        doi = {10.1145/170035.170080},
        url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/170035.170080},
        year = {1993}
}

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 19 of 19 citing papers.

Rank	Citing Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
291	Optimization of Dynamic Query Evaluation Plans	1994	SIGMOD	0.00021898776
403	A Case for Fractured Mirrors	2002	VLDB	0.00019067656
1,866	Optimizing Disjunctive Queries with Expensive Predicates	1994	SIGMOD	9.4590899e-05
2,671	The Complexity of Transformation-Based Join Enumeration	1997	VLDB	8.1310287e-05
3,135	Evaluating Queries with Generalized Path Expressions	1996	SIGMOD	7.5943566e-05
3,725	Bypassing Joins in Disjunctive Queries	1995	VLDB	7.0458585e-05
3,857	EROC: A Toolkit for Building NEATO Query Optimizers	1996	VLDB	6.9553827e-05
4,055	Counting, Enumerating, and Sampling of Execution Plans in a Cost-Based Query Optimizer	2000	SIGMOD	6.814254e-05
4,213	Cost-based Selection of Path Expression Processing Algorithms in Object-Oriented Databases	1996	VLDB	6.7198499e-05
5,549	A Cost Model for Clustered Object-Oriented Databases	1995	VLDB	6.071306e-05
6,064	Query Unnesting in Object-Oriented Databases	1998	SIGMOD	5.8826375e-05
6,122	Optimization of Conjunctive Predicates for Main Memory Column Stores	2016	VLDB	5.8638562e-05
7,346	Optimizing Queries with Universal Quantification in Object-Oriented and Object-Relational Databases	1997	VLDB	5.5314259e-05
7,549	Algebraic Optimization of Computations over Scientific Databases	1993	VLDB	5.4809567e-05
8,575	OFL: A Functional Execution Model for Object Query Languages	1995	SIGMOD	5.29707e-05
9,346	From Nested-Loop to Join Queries in OODB	1994	VLDB	5.1765714e-05
9,972	Optimization of Disjunctive Predicates for Main Memory Column Stores	2017	SIGMOD	5.0908004e-05
10,195	Generating Application-Specific Data Layouts for In-memory Databases	2019	VLDB	5.0516135e-05
13,384	Building a Laboratory Information System around a C++-Based Object-Oriented DBMS	1994	VLDB	4.9605343e-05

Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 8 of 8 cited papers.

Citations counted here include only citations to other VLDB/SIGMOD/CIDR/PODS papers in this database.

Rank	Cited Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
1	Access Path Selection in a Relational Database Management System	1979	SIGMOD	0.0023948467
1,015	Improved Unnesting Algorithms for Join Aggregate SQL Queries	1992	VLDB	0.00012468327
1,030	Algebraic Support for Complex Objects with Arrays, Identity, and Inheritance	1991	SIGMOD	0.00012380641
1,102	A General Framework for the Optimization of Object-Oriented Queries	1992	SIGMOD	0.00011993605
1,501	Advanced Query Processing in Object Bases Using Access Support Relations	1990	VLDB	0.00010434058
1,894	Query Processing in the ObjectStore Database System	1992	SIGMOD	9.4041988e-05
2,121	A Performance Evaluation of Pointer-Based Joins	1990	SIGMOD	8.9972659e-05
2,377	Efficient Assembly of Complex Objects	1991	SIGMOD	8.5327717e-05

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1	2,888	Query Optimizers: Time to Rethink the Contract?	2009	SIGMOD
2	3,196	On Accessing Object-Oriented Databases: Expressive Power, Complexity, and Restrictions	1989	SIGMOD
3	291	Optimization of Dynamic Query Evaluation Plans	1994	SIGMOD
4	4,213	Cost-based Selection of Path Expression Processing Algorithms in Object-Oriented Databases	1996	VLDB
5	646	Exploiting Statistics on Query Expressions for Optimization	2002	SIGMOD
6	9,321	A General Framework for Modeling and Processing Optimization Queries	2007	VLDB
7	259	An Overview of Query Optimization in Relational Systems	1998	PODS
8	118	The EXODUS Optimizer Generator	1987	SIGMOD
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10	1,102	A General Framework for the Optimization of Object-Oriented Queries	1992	SIGMOD