Q-Tree: A multi-attribute based range query solution for tele-immersive framework

Users and administrators of large distributed systems are frequently in need of monitoring and management of its various components, data items and resources. Though there exist several distributed query and aggregation systems, the clustered structure of tele-immersive interactive frameworks and their time-sensitive nature and application requirements represent a new class of systems which poses different challenges on this distributed search. Multi-attribute composite range queries are one of the key features in this class. Queries are given in high level descriptions and then transformed into multi-attribute composite range queries. Designing such a query engine with minimum traffic overhead, low service latency, and with static and dynamic nature of large datasets, is a challenging task. In this paper, we propose a general multi-attribute based range query framework, Q-Tree, that provides efficient support for this class of systems. In order to serve efficient queries, Q-Tree builds a single topology-aware tree overlay by connecting the participating nodes in a bottom-up approach, and assigns range intervals on each node in a hierarchical manner. We show the relative strength of Q-Tree by analytically comparing it against P-Tree, P-Ring, Skip-Graph and Chord. With fine-grained load balancing and overlay maintenance, our simulations with PlanetLab traces show that our approach can answer complex queries within a fraction of a second.