Vector database management systems:

Fundamental concepts, use-cases, and current challenges

Toni Taipalus

Abstract
Vector database management systems have emerged as an important component in modern data manage-
arXiv:2309.11322v2 [[Link]] 16 Feb 2024

ment, driven by the growing importance for the need to computationally describe rich data such as texts,
images and video in various domains such as recommender systems, similarity search, and chatbots. These
data descriptions are captured as numerical vectors that are computationally inexpensive to store and com-
pare. However, the unique characteristics of vectorized data, including high dimensionality and sparsity,
demand specialized solutions for efficient storage, retrieval, and processing. This narrative literature review
provides an accessible introduction to the fundamental concepts, use-cases, and current challenges associated
with vector database management systems, offering an overview for researchers and practitioners seeking to
facilitate effective vector data management.
Keywords: vector, database, feature, challenge, neural network, deep learning

1. Introduction

It is increasingly common that rich, unstructured data such as large texts, images and video are not only
stored, but given semantics through a process called vectorization [1] which captures the features of the data
object in a cost-effectively processed numerical vector such as ⃗k = [6, 7]. The vectors are n-dimensional, and
consist of natural, real, or complex numbers, where one number represents a feature or a part of a feature.
The features that form a vector can range from simple, such as the number of actors in a stage play, to
complex, such as textures identified in an image by a neural network [2], where number 3 may correspond
to texture of human skin, while number 10 may correspond to the texture of a cat’s fur. In contrast to
traditional data models such as relational, where queries often take forms such as “find the orders of a
specific user ” or “find the products that are on sale”, vector queries typically search for similar vectors using
one or several query vectors. That is, queries take forms such as “find ten most similar images of cats that
look like the cat in this image” or “find the most suitable restaurants for me given my current position”.
Managing vector data has gained increased popularity, partly due to applications such as reverse image
search, recommender systems, and chatbots, and this trend is on the rise [3]. Consequently, efficient man-
agement of data requires a dedicated database management system (DBMS). A vector DBMS (VDBMS) is
not strictly a requirement for any business domain, as vectors can be stored and queried without a dedicated
DBMS, similarly to relational or document data can be stored and queried without a relational DBMS. The
DBMS, however, in all cases, facilitates data management that is feasible, freeing development resources to-
wards other business domain critical tasks by providing ready-made features such as transaction and access
control, automated database scalability, and query optimization. Additionally, increasingly complex business
domains require increasingly complex features such as vector similarity search complemented by metadata
filters, as well as searching with multiple query vectors [1], and efficient ways to manage access control and
concurrent transactions.
This narrative literature review aims to provide an easily accessible description of fundamental concepts
behind VDBMSs (Section 2) without focusing on the intricacies of a single product, an overview of current
VDBMS products and their features (Section 3), explanations behind some popular use-cases such as image

1 To cite this article, please refer to the peer-reviewed, published version in Cognitive Systems Research [Link]

10.1016/[Link].2024.101216
 y comedy
restaurant The Frogs
f⃗k f⃗k
you The Knights

f⃗ ⃗
ka f⃗ ⃗
ka
⃗k ⃗k

grocery
store Antigone
⃗a ⃗a

x tragedy

(a) Closeness in geospatial locations (b) Closeness in genres

Figure 1: Simple examples of applications of two-dimensional vectors

similarity search and long-term memory for chatbots (Section 4), and some of the current challenges related
to VDBMSs (Section 5). This work assumes that the reader is familiar with fundamentals of some other
type of database management system (e.g., relational), and does not detail the mathematics of vectors, or
algorithms behind vector search or vector index creation.

2. Vectors and vector database management systems

2.1. Vectors as data representations
Perhaps one of the most intuitive use-case for vector data is in geospatial applications [e.g., 4]. Two-
dimensional points such as the location of the end-user and points-of-interest may be represented as vectors,
and the closest points-of-interest may be calculated with simple and well-understood operations. For example,
by calculating the distance between the end-user (“you” in Fig. 1a) and points-of-interest, the length of
vectors (f⃗k and ka,
⃗ i.e., distance) can be compared, and the closest point-of-interest found. If we consider
the vector for the end-user as ⃗k = [6, 7], the vector for the restaurant as f⃗ = [3, 8] and the vector for the
grocery store as ⃗a = [7, 1], we can calculate the similarity or closeness of the vectors by, e.g., Euclidean
distance or cosine similarity.
In addition to coordinates, other types of data can be represented as vectors. For example, instead of
coordinates, Fig. 1b shows Greek plays mapped along how comic and tragic they are. By examining closeness
based on these two dimensions, we can, e.g., calculate that the play The Knights is closer to The Frogs than
Antigone, that is, the vector f⃗k is shorter than the vector ka.
⃗ The vector for Antigone can be represented
as ⃗a = [7, 1], where the first component represents the amount of tragedy, and the second component the
amount of comedy. Closeness of the vectors is not the only way to measure similarity.
The aforementioned are examples of very low-dimensional vectors. By increasing the dimensions of vec-
tors (say, by adding z coordinates, or another genre, drama), vectors can capture increasingly rich data. If
Antigone’s drama amounts to 6, the vector for Antigone in three-dimensional space is ⃗a = [7, 1, 6]. Further-
more, a high-dimensional vector may have thousands or millions of dimensions, making the visualizations of
such vectors unfeasible, and the data unreadable for a human. Such high-dimensional vectors can be used
to represent more complex data such as text, image, audio and video features. From data-representation
perspective, this separates vector databases from relational and NoSQL databases, in which data objects are
often human-readable, contextualized numbers, text strings, and time. This holds especially in relational
databases, where data objects are given meaning by table and column names. In NoSQL databases, data
objects may also be highly unstructured and more difficult to understand for a human.

2.2. Vector database management systems

A vector database management system is a specialized type of database management system that fo-
cuses primarily on the efficient management of high-dimensional vector data. Similarly to other types of

2
database management systems (such as relational, document, and graph), this definition requires that a
VDBMS is functional software that can manage data, rather than being merely, e.g., a software library.
Data management includes but is not limited to data querying and manipulation, collection of metadata,
indexing, access control, backups, support for scalability, and interfaces with other systems such as database
drivers, programming languages, frameworks, and operating systems. Furthermore, a VDBMS focuses on
the management of vector data. There are several DBMSs that offer support for multiple data models (e.g.,
PostgreSQL supports relational, document and object-oriented data models2 , and Redis supports key-value
and vector data models3 ), yet the primary focus of such systems is typically on one data model. It has
been noted that such systems miss optimization opportunities for vector data, and may lack features such
as the use multiple query vectors [1]. Finally, a VDBMS focuses on the management of high-dimensional
vectors. Systems focusing on, e.g., two or three-dimensional geospatial data management are not considered
VDBMSs in this context.
VDBMSs typically support similarity search through indexing methods that enable rapid and accurate
searching of similar vectors, i.e., search for vectors that closely resemble a given query vector based on specific
distance metrics such as Euclidean distance or cosine similarity. This capability is particularly valuable in
various applications where finding similar vectors is crucial, such as image or text retrieval systems. VDBMSs
also offer support for vector operations, allowing users to perform mathematical computations on vectors.
These operations may include arithmetic calculations, statistical analysis, or transformations to manipulate
the vectors. In colloquial language, the term vector database is sometimes used as a synonym for a VDBMS
despite the fact that a VDBMS is software, yet a vector database is a collection of data. It is also worth
noting that despite their popularity, we – among others [1] – do not consider algorithms or libraries such as
Facebook’s FAISS library [5] VDBMSs, as they do not provide many of the functionalities described above.

2.3. Database system architecture

A database system consists of one or several database management systems, databases, and software
applications. Fig. 2 shows a simplified flow of information from traditional data sources (depicted on the
left-hand side, e.g., relational databases) to the vector database (gray). Continuing with the example of
Greek plays, the human-readable texts of the plays are vectorized, i.e., transformed into high-dimensional
vector representations in a way that captures meaningful relationships or patterns. The outcome of the
vectorization process, i.e., the vector, is often called a vector embedding or a feature vector. In addition to
the vector itself, VDBMSs typically store a vector identifier, some vector metadata, and possibly the data
that the vector represents. For example, for the play Antigone, a VDBMS may store an unique identifier, a
vector embedding of the text of the play that contains numerical data about the amount of tragedy, comedy
and drama in Antigone, metadata such as type of work (“play”) and country of origin (“Greece”), and
the play itself in plain text. The play itself is often referred to as the payload of the vector. As another
example, YouTube utilizes metadata such as user and video language and time since video was last watched
in providing personalized recommendations [6].
In natural language processing, words and phrases are vectorized into vectors in such a way that similar
words have similar vector representations. Similarity can mean different things depending on the context,
e.g., words may sound similar (walking and talking), or words may mean similar things (walking and running)
in different contexts. The amount of tragedy in a play may depend on the number of tragic words in the
play, a sentiment analysis assessing the tone of the play, or topic modeling which identifies key themes in
the play. This process helps algorithms understand and work with the data more effectively. Word2vec [7],
FastText, and Doc2vec [8] are examples of techniques that create vector embeddings for words in natural
language.
After the data objects have been vectorized and stored in the vector database, the data are indexed
to enable faster queries, as with effectively all data models [9]. As vector queries are almost always ap-
proximations, one of the primary trade-offs between different indexing algorithms are accuracy and speed.
Some popular algorithms are Product Quantization [e.g., 10, 11], which divides high-dimensional vectors
into smaller parts and summarizes each part separately, reducing dimensionality and storage space require-
ments, but losing some accuracy, Locality-Sensitive Hashing [e.g., 12], which hashes similar vectors to the

2 [Link]
3 [Link]

3
 The Frogs: "Shall I crack any of those..."
The Knights: "Oh! alas! alas! alas!..." "Find the most tragic plays."
Antigone: "Ismene, dear sister, You..."

VDBMS

insert query
Vectorization Vectorization Application

indexing

insert query

return results

The Frogs: [3, 8, -1, ...]

1. Antigone
The Knights: [6, 7, 0, ...] Search vector: [9, -3, 3, ...]
2. The Knights
Antigone: [7, 1, 5, ...]

Figure 2: A simplified view of a database system illustrating the flow and transformation of information to and from the vector
database; the vectorization process transforms information into vectors which can be quickly compared with each other; it is
worth noting that the natural language query depicted here requires data additional to the actual plays

same buckets, enabling approximate similarity search, and Hierarchical Navigable Small World [e.g., 13, 14],
which creates a hierarchical graph with fast neighborhood exploration by building a small world network.
Other algorithms include R-trees [15], KD-trees [e.g., 16], and Random Projection [e.g., 17]. Table 1 sum-
marizes various vector index types. It is worth noting that the choice of indexing algorithm depends on the
data characteristics, dimensionality, and search requirements. Index creation is typically computationally
expensive.
Similarly to inserting data into the vector database, queries in natural language or human-readable
values in computer language queries must be vectorized before the VDBMS can assess vector similarity. The
vectorization may happen in the application program or the VDBMS (the latter case is depicted in Fig. 2,
yet the former case is more typical). Vectorization can be done in multiple ways depending on the data and
the purpose of the vectorization. Despite the fact that feature vectors of Greek plays and feature vectors of
images of cats may look similar (i.e., both are “lists” of numbers), their values represent different things.
As mentioned earlier, vector similarity or closeness may be assessed using several methods such as Jaccard
similarity, which measures the similarity between two sets (i.e., vectors) by comparing their shared elements
to the total number of distinct elements in both sets, Euclidean distance (L2), which measures the straight-
line distance between two points in a space with multiple dimensions, dot product, which computes the sum
of the products of corresponding elements in two vectors, or cosine similarity, which measures the cosine
of the angle between two vectors, indicating how similar their directions are regardless of their magnitudes.
The choice of method depends on the context and the specific characteristics of the data. For more in-depth,
mathematical explanations, Wang et al. [18] provide accessible overview of several indexing and search
methods mentioned above.
From a developer perspective, queries in VDBMSs are more closely related to simple document or key-
value store queries than to complex queries in relational databases. Instead of retrieving documents based
on document identifiers as in many NoSQL systems, vectors are retrieved using one or several query vectors.
Despite this similarity in queries, the query execution internals differ, since VDBMS queries typically search
for nearest neighbor vectors instead of exact matches. Fig. 3 illustrates some basic queries in three VDBMSs

4
 Characteristics Use-cases Advantages Disadvantages
Lossy compression
Product Quantiza- Divides vectors Reduces
Image search may reduce
tion into smaller parts dimensionality
accuracy
Hashes similar Enables
Locality-Sensitive Near-duplicate Requires
vectors to same approximate
Hashing detection parameter tuning
buckets similarity search
Recommendation Complex index
Hierarchical Navi- Creates a Fast neighborhood
systems, text structure, space
gable Small World hierarchical graph exploration
search overhead
Hierarchical Spatial data Slower
Efficient range
R-trees structure with (geospatial nearest-neighbor
queries, updates
bounding boxes indexing) searches
Binary tree Balanced tree Inefficient in high
Machine learning,
KD-trees partitioning along structure, good for dimensions,
clustering
dimensions low dimensions complex build
Projects Fast indexing, May lose
Random Projec- Text classification,
high-dimensional good for high information,
tion clustering
data randomly dimensions requires tuning

Table 1: Comparison of some vector indexing techniques

and in PostgreSQL with the pgvector extension. Instead of searching for Greek plays where the amount of
tragedy is high, as one probably would with a relational query, a vector query may retrieve Greek plays
which are similar to a particular play in terms of tragedy, comedy, drama, author, publication year, etc.
In addition to the vectors themselves, queries may utilize metadata to, e.g., limit the number of vectors to
compare. For example, if the end-user is requesting data on Greek plays, and the database contains metadata
for language and type of media, the vector similarity search may be limited to Greek plays rather than all
written art originating from all countries. While vectors are indexed using different vector indices, metadata
may be indexed using more traditional techniques such as B+ -trees to support range queries. Queries that
utilize both a query vector and metadata filters are called hybrid queries. If a VDBMS does not provide
the means for hybrid queries, metadata-based searches may be implemented separately as part of a broader
architecture. Fig. 4 provides a generalized (i.e., not product-specific) overview of VDBMS components.
These components are in principle similar to components in other types of DBMSs: the query component
parses the queries and other statements from the software application, checks user access rights on data object
level, optimizes the query, and passes the query to the storage component. The storage component logs the
transaction if the VDBMS utilizes transaction logs such as Write Ahead Logging, manages transaction locks
if applicable, and retrieves or stores the data the application has requested with the help of different buffers,
memory, CPU and GPU, and possibly other specialized hardware such as Field-Programmable Gate Arrays
or tensor processing units.

3. Products and features

At the time of writing, DB-Engines [19] lists seven VDBMSs: Pinecone, Chroma, Milvus, Weaviate, Vald,
Qdrant and Deep Lake. However, since Vald primarily focuses on similarity search and lacks features such as
access control and integrations to other technologies, we considered Vald a vector search engine rather than
a VDBMSs as defined in Section 2.1. Several of these products are designed from the ground up to utilize
different types of processing units or devices, and multi-GPU and CPU parallelism in a coordinated manner
[1]. The VDBMSs typically implement several index and search methods (such as Euclidean distance), and
the optimizer component selects the most suitable search method depending on the characteristics of the
data and the query, similarly to the optimizer in relational DBMSs.
In addition to the VDBMSs mentioned above, there are also several DBMSs with multiple data models,
vectors being one of them, several vector extensions to other DBMSs such as PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Cas-

5
 1 payload = {
1 results = [Link]( 2 "filter": {
2 data=[[3, 8, -1, ...]], 3 "country": "Greece",
3 anns_field="text", 4 "type": "play"
4 param=search_params, 5 },
5 limit=2, 6 "includeValues": True,
6 expr="country like \"Greece\" && type like \"play\"", 7 "includeMetadata": True,
7 output_fields=[’title’], 8 "topK": 2,
8 consistency_level="Strong" 9 "vector": [3, 8, -1, ...]
9 ) 10 }
11 response = [Link](url, json=payload)
(a) Query in Milvus
(b) Query in Pinecone

1 SELECT *
1 results = [Link](
2 FROM plays
2 query_embeddings=[[3, 8, -1, ...]],
3 WHERE country = ’Greece’
3 n_results=2,
4 AND type = ’play’
4 where={"country": "Greece", "type": "play"}
5 ORDER BY embedding <-> ’[3,8,-1, ...]’
5 )
6 LIMIT 2;
(c) Query in Chroma
(d) Query in PostgreSQL (pgvector)

Figure 3: Hybrid queries in different VDBMSs using Python, and in PostgreSQL using SQL

Table 2: VDBMS features; example use-cases are based on a product’s documentation’s use-case examples as of August 2023

License First release Querying with metadata

Pinecone Proprietary 2021 rich expressions
Chroma Apache 2.0 2023 rich expressions
Milvus Apache 2.0 2019 rich expressions
Weaviate BSD 3-clause / proprietary 2019 supported
Qdrant Apache 2.0 / proprietary 2022 rich expressions
Deep Lake Apache 2.0 / proprietary 2019 rich expressions
Integration Querying Example use-cases
Pinecone OpenAI, LangChain, others Java, Python, C#, several others chatbots, image search
Chroma LangChain, LlamaIndex JavaScript, Python, Ruby, others chatbots
Milvus OpenAI, LangChain, others Java, Python, Go, [Link] chatbots, image/audio/video search
Weaviate OpenAI, Cohere, PaLM Java, JavaScript, Python, Go, GraphQL chatbots, image search
Qdrant OpenAI, LangChain, others Python, JavaScript, Go, Rust chatbots, image search
Deep Lake LlamaIndex, LangChain Python, SQL-like TQL image search

sandra, Redis and SingleStore, and as vector database-enabling libraries for programming languages, such
as Thistle for Rust [20]. Table 2 lists some features of these six VDBMSs. Similarly to NoSQL systems, we
expect VDBMSs to develop rapidly in terms of features, new products, and community support.

4. Use-cases

4.1. Similarity search in general

As explained in Section 2.1, there are many use-cases for vector data. Effectively all data objects that
can be vectorized in a meaningful way may be used in approximate similarity search, which is the basis
for almost all vector database retrieval operations. Although the next subsections focus on some popular
use-cases for vector databases, it is worth noting that this is not an exhaustive list. For example, vectors
are used in storing and comparing molecular structures [21] and rentable apartments [22], automated black-
and-white image colorization [23], facial expression recognition [24], tracking digital image assets [25], and
recommender systems [26].

4.2. Image and video similarity search

In a similar fashion as Greek plays, images can be vectorized, yet the process is typically more complex and
involves image normalization in terms of size and pixel values, and feature extraction prior to vectorization.
Feature extraction, which is typically external to the VDBMS, can involve passing the images – one at a

6
 VDBMS
Transaction
logs

id : 18C90122AA...
Query Storage {
Application Metadata :
component component type : "play",
country : "Greece", ...
}
Vector : [7, 1, 5, ...]
CPU Memory
Payload : "Ismene, dear ..."

Other
GPU specialized
hardware

Figure 4: A generalized overview of VDBMS components; the arrows represent the flow of information from the software
application through the VDBMS to the physical database; the database represents persistent storage device, contrary to Fig. 2,
where the database represents the logical database structure maintained by the VDBMS; the righ-hand side shows an example
of the stored data object consisting of metadata, the vector, and vector payload

time – through a convolutional neural network. The process extracts increasingly abstract features from the
image, starting from simple features such as the presence of vertical and horizontal edges and simple shapes
[e.g., 27], to textures such as fur, foliage and water. These features are vectorized and used for similarity
search. Images with similar vector representations are likely to be visually similar in terms of the captured
features. Similarly to Fig. 3, Fig. 5a shows that after a set of images has been vectorized, similar process
can be used for reverse image search (i.e., searching for images with image input). Once similar vectors have
been found, the VDBMS returns the vector payloads to the application.
In the context of video vectorization, videos are typically broken down into individual frames, although
just a representative subset of frames may be considered. Similarly to stand-alone images, features are
extracted from the individual frames and vectorized into a feature vector representing its content. Addition-
ally, temporal information is often needed to further understand the contents of the video. For example, one
video of a Greek play may develop from comedy to tragedy, while another may do the opposite. Without
temporal information about the order of the frames, it is not possible to tell one from another in this regard.
The process results in a sequence of feature vectors which can be combined. In other words, the sequence
of vectors may be considered a three-dimensional tensor, where dimensions represent frames, features, and
time. This tensor can be stored as a flattened vector in the vector database. It is worth noting that the
dimension of the tensor here is a different concept than the dimension of the vector.

4.3. Voice recognition

Voice recognition using vectors works in a similar fashion to video vectorization and search. If the audio
is analog format, it is digitized and divided into short frames, each of which represent a segment of the audio.
Each frame is normalized, filtered and transformed with various techniques, and finally stored as a feature
vector [28]. The whole audio is therefore a sequence of feature vectors, all together representing a spoken
word or sentence, a song, or some other type of audio. If voice recognition is used in user authentication,
similar process may be applied to a spoken keyphrase, and the vectorized spoken keyphrase compared with
vectorized recordings. On the other hand, if voice recognition is used in a conversational agent, the sequences
of vectors can be used as an input for, e.g., neural networks to recognize and classify spoken words, and to
respond accordingly in text or synthethized voice using a generative model such as ChatGPT. The examples
of returning similar-looking cats and using voice recognition to authenticate users serve as opposing prime
examples of tolerance in similarity search. While several images of similar cats may be returned with
relatively low tolerance, authenticating an user by their voice requires high tolerance.

7
 VDBMS

insert query
Feature Feature Feature Feature
extraction vectorization vectorization extraction

indexing

insert query

return similar images

(a) By vectorizing images (left-hand side) by their features, reverse image search can be used to find similar images (right-hand side)

VDBMS (generative model) VDBMS (long-term memory)

insert query
Vectorization Vectorization Application

indexing indexing

insert query
query(*) and insert

insert

response

(b) A VDBMS can be used for long-term storage of chatbot conversations, which can be then queried and used as additional context for
generative models; the query with an asterisk contains both the original user prompt as well as similar conversations, which are both used
as query vectors for the generative model

Figure 5: Uses-cases for VDBMSs in the domains of image similarity search and chatbots; note how here all the VDBMSs
handle the vectorization of data – this is not usually the case

4.4. Chatbots and long-term memory

VDBMs can be used for long-term memory of chatbots or other generative models. Illustrated on the
left-hand side of Fig. 5b, a large dataset is first used to train a model capable of imitating understanding
and producing natural language to a certain degree. A VDBMS can be used to store and index the vectors,
although this can be done in other ways as well. Generative models have limitations when it comes to
remembering past conversations or context, and currently, several technical limitations contribute to this
challenge. For example, several models can only consider a limited amount of preceding text when generating
a response. Consequently, they currently often struggle to recall detailed information from long conversations
[29]. Generative models do not have a built-in memory of past interactions, and generate responses based
on the immediate context provided in the input. Once a conversation becomes too lengthy or complex, the
model’s ability to reference earlier parts of the conversation diminishes. Furthermore, generative models are
trained on large datasets, but they lack the ability to distinguish between factual information and user-specific
interactions. This can lead to instances where the model provides inconsistent or incorrect information based
on the training data [cf. e.g., 30].

8
 To counter these limitations, a VDBMS may be used as a long-term memory in such use-cases. As
illustrated on the right-hand side of Fig. 5b, when an end-user prompts (i.e., submits a query to) a chatbot,
the natural language query is vectorized and used as a query vector for a long-term memory vector database
to find top-k similar conversations. The query (i.e., the user prompt in vectorized and natural language
form) is also stored in the long-term memory vector database. Next, the original user prompt as well as
k similar past conversations are used as query vectors for the generative model (marked with an asterisk
in Fig. 5b). The generative model then generates a response, which is inserted in the long-term memory
database in vectorized and natural language form, and returned to the application (i.e., the chatbot user
interface). This approach not only allows the chatbot to remember past conversations, but also enables
personalized information, conversation sequence encoding, and timestamps through vector metadata, and
potentially reduces the use of computational resources without the need to retrain or fine-tune the generative
model. In addition or alternatively to storing past conversations, a VDBMS can be used to store documents
which are used as additional, context-providing input to the generative model. These documents can be
private to the organization using the VDBMS, or they may be additional, timely information not included
in the generative model. This approach is dubbed retrieval augmented generation [31, 32].
In summary, the previous subsections illustrate different use-cases for VDBMSs, yet it can be seen that the
function of the VDBMS is rather uniform regardless of the use-case. That is, from a transaction processing
perspective, the VDBMS stores, indexes and retrieves vectors, and domain-specific processes such as image
feature extraction are carried out in other parts of the system.

5. Current challenges

5.1. Balancing between speed and accuracy

As most queries in VDBMSs operate by searching approximate nearest neighbors, balancing between
query response time and the accuracy of the results is a trade-off largely dictated by the business domain.
Some vector index types such as Product Quantization save storage space and speed up queries by abstracting
and aggregating information with the cost of accuracy, while other index types such as R-trees are lossless.
Lossless indices are preferred when exact similarity measurements are critical, while lossy indices are used
when approximate similarity searches are acceptable, and there is a need to reduce storage and computation
costs.
The challenge in choosing between speed and accuracy is two-fold. First, compared to many other
data models, the concept of query accuracy plays a significantly larger role. Although many NoSQL data
models forsake data integrity for eventual consistency, the effects of such design principles for the end-
user are relatively small compared to inaccurate vector searches. On the other hand, VDBMSs disregard
many challenges related to other data models, such as the complexity of querying in relational databases,
and respective challenges and complexities in logical database design in both relational and NoSQL data
models. Second, the trade-offs between speed and accuracy are emphasized in especially large datasets where
both speed and query accuracy are critical. For example, natural language operated decision support systems
which use large corporate datasets or stock market data need to provide decisions fast, but without returning
inaccurate or untrue results. One possible solution for ensuring both speed and accuracy is utilizing several
indices for the same vectors, yet this approach naturally requires more storage capacity.

5.2. Growing dimensionality and sparsity

The growing dimensionality of vectors is a challenge. As the needs of the domain grow, it is natural that
the vectorized data need more features. For example, it is reasonable to assume that a vector database of
Greek plays will soon require more insights on the plays besides the amount of comedy and tragedy. This
leads to increased storage requirements and computational complexity.
Increased dimensionality also impacts similarity search, as the notion of proximity becomes less reliable
in high-dimensional spaces. Euclidean distance, which is commonly used in low-dimensional spaces, becomes
less reliable in high-dimensional spaces due to the concentration of points around the surface of the space.
That is, in high-dimensional spaces, the volume of space grows exponentially with new dimensions, while the
possible number of vectors typically does not. This results in vectors naturally concentrating close to the
hypersurface of the space, as that is where the majority of the space is. Because vectors are concentrated

9
near the surface, the distances between the vectors tend to be more similar in high-dimensional space [33].
Developing effective distance measures that can capture the true similarity or dissimilarity between high-
dimensional vectors is an ongoing research challenge.
Another challenge is the increased sparsity of high-dimensional vectors. As the number of dimensions
grows, the available space becomes more sparsely populated, meaning that data points are spread out across
the vector. For example, if a vector database consisting of feature vectors of images of cats is extended to
cover images of other animals as well, vector dimensions associated with cats (or mammals, or chordates,
etc.) do not contribute significantly to the overall structure of vectors depicting other animals. This sparsity
complicates indexing and retrieval, as methods designed for denser data struggle to efficiently represent and
query sparse data. The challenges associated with sparse data have been addressed in, e.g., the column-family
data model, but not in the degree that is required with high-dimensional sparse vectors.

5.3. Achieving general maturity

DBMSs are typically large and complex pieces of software. It follows that there are several aspects to
DBMSs that evolve and mature over time, and because VDBMSs are relatively novel systems (cf. Table 2),
considerations such as their stability, reliability, and optimization are subject to even drastic development.
In comparison, even mature relational DBMSs still receive critical bug fixes [34].
Maturity is not a goal in on itself. Decades of development and testing have likely addressed many bugs
and stability issues, making DBMSs in general more reliable for mission-critical applications. Over time,
DBMSs tend to accumulate a rich set of features and functionalities. They often support a wide range of
data models, query languages, and storage options, allowing them to cater to diverse use-cases. This is not
necessarily the case with more novel VDBMSs. Additionally, a mature DBMS typically has a large and
active user community, which can be valuable for getting support, finding resources such as online tutorials,
and leveraging third-party extensions and integrations.
Information security is a challenge that is not limited to business domains of VDBMSs. Due to their
common use-cases, a vector database may contain sensitive information such as conversations intended to
be private, biometric data, risk assessment profiles, and geospatial intelligence data. While many similar
use-cases are common in relational databases as well, older DBMSs have had time to identify and address
more security vulnerabilities, and usually have robust security features and practices in place.
In summary, there are several open challenges regarding VDBMSs, some of which are related to algo-
rithms such as the need for novel index structures, some to software such as the availability of certain features
in VDBMSs, and some to social aspects such as the maturity and availability of online support. In the future,
we expect the demand for vector databases to grow. Consequently, we expect VDBMS vendors to focus on
developing and applying new algorithms for vector indices, as well as making high-dimensional vectors more
human-readable through visualizations. Additionally, as data-intensive computational models are compu-
tationally expensive to retrain, we expect that VDBMS vendors will try to address this by implementing
features for incremental learning, i.e., cost-effective fine-tuning of computational models.

6. Conclusion

Vector database is a growing data model intended for storing vectors which describe rich data in high-
dimensional vectors. This study provided an overview of fundamental concepts behind vector databases and
vector database management systems, such as different types of vector similarity comparison types, different
vector index types, and the principal software components in a VDBMS. Additionally, this study described
some VDBMSs and their features, as well as some popular use-cases for vector data such as chatbots and
image similarity search. Finally, this study discussed some of the current challenges associated with VDBMSs
such as high-dimensionality and sparsity of vector data, and the relative novelty of VDBMS products and
the implications therein.

Acknowledgements

Bitmap images of cats in Fig. 5 were generated with DALL-E.

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