A Learned Approach to Index Algorithm Selection

The recent surge in learned index algorithms, along-side traditional indexes, has greatly diversified indexing options to support query processing in databases. Despite the rapid expansion of learned indexes, there remains a significant gap in tools for index algorithm selection. Traditional research on index selection has largely focused on recommending which columns to index, as the choice between algorithms like B+tree or hash index was once straightforward. This was managed through basic rules or experiential judgment, given the historically limited options. However, this approach is inadequate today, due to the growing diversity and complexity of index algorithms. In this paper, we introduce a Learned INDex Algorithm Selector, LINDAS. Taking a learned approach, LINDAS uniquely focuses on automatically selecting the most suitable index algorithm for a specific column, that satisfies diverse performance objectives in a wide range of applications. We explore the design space of LINDAS, employing a carefully designed featurization approach to capture both data-and workload-specific characteristics with attention mechanisms, as well as the meta-features of index algorithms. Two variants of LINDAS are designed to cater to diverse scenarios and adapt readily to new datasets, workloads, and emerging index algorithms. Comprehensive evaluations of LINDAS across various datasets and workloads demonstrate its effectiveness and superiority compared to applicable baselines.