OpenSearch:Introduction to vectors

Vector-based retrieval

In the information age, information may consist of multiple modalities, such as text, image, video, and audio. Multimodal information can present more information than text, such as color, shape, motion state, sound, and spatial relationship.

The modalities of information in various fields have greatly changed.

Multimodal information is classified into two categories: structured data and unstructured data.

Unstructured data is difficult for computers to understand. The traditional query method by analyzing text terms cannot meet the search requirements of various fields. To resolve the issue, OpenSearch Vector Search Edition provides the vector-based retrieval feature.

This topic describes vectors and how to perform vector-based retrieval.

Unstructured data generated in the physical world can be transformed into structured multidimensional vectors that identify relationships between entities.

Then, the distance between the vectors is calculated. In most cases, the closer the distance, the higher the vector similarity. The top N results with the highest vector similarity are retrieved. This implements vector-based retrieval.

Vector retrieval algorithms

Linear algorithm

The linear algorithm linearly processes all vector data.

Scenario: You can use this algorithm if you require a recall rate of 100%.

Disadvantage: This algorithm delivers low efficiency and requires high CPU utilization and memory usage when it processes large volumes of data.

Clustering algorithms

Quantized clustering

Overview

Quantized clustering is a vector retrieval algorithm developed by Alibaba Cloud based on K-means clustering. This algorithm seeks n centroids of the vector documents, and clusters each document to the centroid closest to the document. This way, n posting lists are built. The n centroids and the corresponding posting lists are the main content of quantized clustering indexing. During the retrieval, OpenSearch calculates the distance between several centroids and the request vector, and selects multiple centroids closest to the request vector. Then, OpenSearch calculates the vector distance for the documents within the posting lists that correspond to the selected centroids and returns the top K documents closest to the request vector.

Quantized clustering supports the FP16 and INT8 quantization feature, which can reduce the index size and improve the retrieval performance. However, this feature may compromise the retrieved results. You can enable or disable the FP16 and INT8 quantization feature based on your business requirements.

The quantized clustering algorithm is suitable for real-time data scenarios or scenarios in which you use GPU resources and require low latency.

Parameter tuning:

• For more information, see Quantized clustering configurations.

The following figure shows the performance of different vector algorithms to process different volumes of data.

HNSW

Overview

Hierarchical navigable small world (HNSW) is a vector retrieval algorithm based on proximity graphs. This algorithm requires you to create a proximity graph and build edges between vectors that are close to each other. The vectors and the edges are the main content of HNSW indexing. During the retrieval, OpenSearch starts the traversal from the entry vector, calculates the distance between the request vector and each adjacent vector of the entry vector, and selects the nearest adjacent vector as the next vector for traversal. OpenSearch traverses the vectors based on the preceding rule until the convergence appears. Convergence refers to that OpenSearch finds an adjacent vector of the current vector closer to the request vector than all other retrieved adjacent vectors.

To accelerate convergence, HNSW builds a multi-layer proximity graph structure based on the logic of skip list query. The retrieval proceeds from top to bottom. The retrieval logic of each layer is similar except for Layer 0. If OpenSearch traverses to a vector in Layer K when the convergence appears, the vector is considered the entry vector of Layer K-1, and OpenSearch continues to traverse Layer K-1. Compared to Layer K-1, Layer K contains sparser nodes between which the distance is longer. In this case, OpenSearch traverses vectors in Layer K with a larger step size and a higher iteration speed than in Layer K-1.

Parameter tuning:

• For more information, see HNSW configuration.

Vector distance types

The process of vector-based retrieval is to calculate the similarity between vectors and return the top K vectors based on the similarity. The similarity between vectors is obtained by calculating the distance between vectors. In most cases, the smaller the score, the closer the vector distance. The larger the score, the further the vector distance.

In different vector spaces, different distance metrics are defined to calculate the distance between vectors. OpenSearch supports the following distance metrics: squared Euclidean distance and inner product.

Squared Euclidean distance

Squared Euclidean distance refers to the distance between two vectors on the plane. As one of the most common distance metrics, the squared Euclidean distance can be obtained by calculating the square root of the sum of the squares of the coordinate differences between two vectors. The smaller the squared Euclidean distance, the higher the vector similarity. The squared Euclidean distance is calculated based on the following formula:

Inner product

The inner product is the dot product or scalar product between two vectors. The larger the inner product, the higher the vector similarity. The inner product can be calculated by multiplying the corresponding elements of the two vectors and summing the products. This distance metric is commonly used in search recommendation scenarios. Generally, whether to calculate the inner product depends on whether the algorithm has an inner product model. The inner product is calculated based on the following formula:

Comparison among vector retrieval algorithms