A distributed algorithm for fast mining frequent patterns in limited and varying network bandwidth environments

Data mining is a set of methods used to mine hidden information from data. It mainly includes frequent pattern mining, sequential pattern mining, classification, and clustering. Frequent pattern mining is used to discover the correlation among various sets of items within large databases. The rapid upward trend in data size slows the mining of frequent patterns. Numerous studies have attempted to develop algorithms that operate in distributed computing environments to accelerate the mining process. FLR-mining (Fast, Load balancing and Resource efficient mining algorithm) is one of the fastest methods of mining with efficient consideration of load balancing and resources. FLR-mining can automatically determine the appropriate number of computing nodes. However, FLR-mining and existing methods assume that the network bandwidth is constant. In practical distributed and many-task computing systems, this assumption fails because there are packet collisions caused by many mining tasks that run in a simultaneous manner. Therefore, a method that can consider the varying network bandwidth is necessary. In this study, we propose a method that can rapidly mine frequent patterns under the varying network bandwidth. The proposed method can also determine the appropriate number of computing nodes to efficiently utilize computing resources and achieve load balancing. Through empirical evaluation, the proposed method is shown to deliver excellent performance in terms of execution efficiency and load balancing.