# Vector database management systems: Fundamental concepts, use-cases, and current challenges

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.11322 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.11322/

## Key facts

- Cited by 9 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 20 Sep 2023.

## Built on by (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [Personal LLM Agents: Insights and Survey about the Capability, Efficiency and Security](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.05459/) (2024)
- [A Comprehensive Survey on Vector Database: Storage and Retrieval Technique, Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.11703/) (2023)
- [MarketSenseAI 2.0: Enhancing Stock Analysis through LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.00415/) (2025)
- [Decentralizing AI Memory: SHIMI, a Semantic Hierarchical Memory Index for Scalable Agent Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.06135/) (2025)
- [Bridging Dual Knowledge Graphs for Multi-Hop Question Answering in Construction Safety](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.13625/) (2025)
- [Text2VectorSQL: Towards a Unified Interface for Vector Search and SQL Queries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.23071/) (2025)
- [The Hybrid Multimodal Graph Index (HMGI): A Comprehensive Framework for Integrated Relational and Vector Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.10123/) (2025)
- [Vextra: A Unified Middleware Abstraction for Heterogeneous Vector Database Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.06727/) (2026)
- [NeuRoute: Logit-Guided Neural Routing for Billion-Scale Vector Search with Sub-Hour Index Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.15438/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Vector database management systems have emerged as an important component in modern data management, 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 compare. 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.