Vertical fragmentation in distributed object database systems with complex attributes and methods

Object oriented database management systems are becoming popular and are being used in a large number of application domains, many of which are inherently distributed. Optimal application performance of a distributed object oriented database system requires class fragmentation and the development of allocation schemes to place fragments at distributed sites in order to minimize data transfer. Our approach is top down, and the entity of fragmentation is the class. Fragmentation algorithms have been proposed for the relational model, but the object model is relatively untouched. We present an algorithm for vertical fragmentation in a model consisting of complex attributes and complex methods. This type of fragmentation facilitates query decomposition, optimization, and parallel treatment for distributed object oriented database systems.