  k nearest neighbor join (kNN join), designed to find k nearest neighbors from
a dataset S for every object in another dataset R, is a primitive operation
widely adopted by many data mining applications. As a combination of the k
nearest neighbor query and the join operation, kNN join is an expensive
operation. Given the increasing volume of data, it is difficult to perform a
kNN join on a centralized machine efficiently. In this paper, we investigate
how to perform kNN join using MapReduce which is a well-accepted framework for
data-intensive applications over clusters of computers. In brief, the mappers
cluster objects into groups; the reducers perform the kNN join on each group of
objects separately. We design an effective mapping mechanism that exploits
pruning rules for distance filtering, and hence reduces both the shuffling and
computational costs. To reduce the shuffling cost, we propose two approximate
algorithms to minimize the number of replicas. Extensive experiments on our
in-house cluster demonstrate that our proposed methods are efficient, robust
and scalable.
