Shaping SQL-based frequent pattern mining algorithms

Integration of data mining and database management systems could significantly ease the process of knowledge discovery in large databases. We consider implementations of frequent itemset mining algorithms, in particular pattern-growth algorithms similar to the top-down FP-growth variations, tightly coupled to relational database management systems. Our implementations remain within the confines of the conventional relational database facilities like tables, indices, and SQL operations. We compare our algorithm to the most promising previously proposed SQL-based FIM algorithm. Experiments show that our method performs better in many cases, but still has severe limitations compared to the traditional stand-alone pattern-growth method implementations. We identify the bottlenecks of our SQL-based pattern-growth methods and investigate the applicability of tightly coupled algorithms in practice.