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Shared Sample Stores

In ado, Entities and measurement results are stored in a database called a Sample Store. For more on how Sample Stores are configured and managed see their dedicated page.

Two principles underpin data reuse in ado:

  • A Sample Store can be shared across multiple Discovery Spaces. This allows any Discovery Space to access Entities and measurements recorded by operations on other Discovery Spaces that use the same store.
  • Each Entity has exactly one record in a Sample Store. If two Discovery Spaces both include the same Entity, they reference the same record — there is no duplication.

Note

To maximise the chance of data reuse, similar Discovery Spaces should use the same Sample Store. However, any Discovery Spaces can share a store regardless of how similar they are.

How ado matches shared data

Entities

In ado two Entities are the same if they have identical sets of constitutive property values. Hence, ado uses constitutive property values to check if an Entity is present in the Sample Store, regardless of which Discovery Space originally recorded them.

Important

The match does not use Entity identifiers as there are situations where they could be different even for Entities with same constitutive properties.

Measurements

When an Entity is retrieved from the Sample Store, it carries the results of all Experiments that have been applied to it. ado checks whether any of those experiment identifiers match an Experiment in the current Measurement Space — if so, the result can be reused.

Data retrieval modes

When retrieving data from a Discovery Space (e.g. via ado show entities), there are two modes that control whether shared data is included:

Mode What is returned
measured Only Entities and measurements recorded by operations run directly on this Discovery Space. Compatible data from other spaces is excluded.
matching All Entities and measurements in the Sample Store that are compatible with this Discovery Space, regardless of which space produced them.

Use measured when you want to see only the results your operations have produced. Use matching when you want the full picture including any compatible data from other spaces.

Memoization

Important

Each explore operator provides a way to turn memoization on and off. See the random walk and ray tune operator documentation for examples of how this setting is controlled.

Memoization is the name for data reuse that happens automatically during an explore operation. When an operation samples an Entity it proceeds as follows:

  • The Entity is sampled from the Entity Space
  • The Entity's record is retrieved from the Sample Store if present (matching on constitutive property values).
  • If memoization is on, ado checks for existing results for each Experiment in the Measurement Space using the Experiment’s unique identifier and reuses all matching results if any are found.
  • If memoization is off, ado ignores existing results, reapplying each Experiment in the Measurement Space to the Entity. The new results are added to any that already exist.

See explore operators for how memoization fits into the explore execution loop, and Discovery Spaces for how operations and spaces relate.