Synonyms
In-memory DBMS; MMDBMS
Definition
A main memory database system is a DBMS that primarily relies on main memory for computer data storage. In contrast, conventional database management systems typically employ hard disk based persistent storage.
Key Points
The main advantage of MMDBMS over normal DBMS technology is superior performance, as I/O cost is no more a performance cost factor. With I/O as main optimization focus eliminated, the architecture of main memory database systems typically aims at optimizing CPU cost and CPU cache usage, leading to different data layout strategies (avoiding complex tuple representations) as well as indexing structures (e.g., B-trees with lower-fan-outs with nodes of one or a few CPU cache lines).
While built on top of volatile storage, most MMDB products offer ACID properties, via the following mechanisms: (i) Transaction Logging, which records changes to the database in a journal file and facilitates automatic recovery of an in-memory...
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Boncz, P. (2018). Main Memory DBMS. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_655
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_655
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