Minimizing Time-Space Cost for Database Version Control

Lin Yu, Daniel J. Rosenkrantz

Abstract: We introduce the concept of a version graph to model the problem of minimizing the combined cost of storage space and version regeneration time for database version control systems. We show that, in general, this problem and several of its variations are NP-complete. Several heuristics are developed, and performance guarantees for these heuristics are obtained. We also present linear time algorithms for special classes of version graphs; these special classes are likely to apply in many version control systems.