Diefficiency Metrics: Measuring the Continuous Efficiency of Query Processing Approaches

During empirical evaluations of query processing techniques, metrics like execution time, time for the first answer, and throughput are usually reported. Albeit informative, these metrics are unable to quantify and evaluate the efficiency of a query engine over a certain time period – or diefficiency –, thus hampering the distinction of cutting-edge engines able to exhibit high-performance gradually. We tackle this issue and devise two experimental metrics named dief@t and dief@k, which allow for measuring the diefficiency during an elapsed time period t or while k answers are produced, respectively. The dief@t and dief@k measurement methods rely on the computation of the area under the curve of answer traces, and thus capturing the answer concentration over a time interval. We report experimental results of evaluating the behavior of a generic SPARQL query engine using both metrics. Observed results suggest that dief@t and dief@k are able to measure the performance of SPARQL query engines based on both the amount of answers produced by an engine and the time required to generate these answers.