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Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 1–7Cite as

Buffer Management

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Definition

The database buffer is a main-memory area used to cache database pages. Database processes request pages from the buffer manager, whose responsibility is to minimize the number of secondary memory accesses by keeping needed pages in the buffer. Because typical database workloads are I/O-bound, the effectiveness of buffer management is critical for system performance.

Historical Background

Buffer management was initially introduced in the 1970s, following the results in virtual memory systems. One of the first systems to implement it was IBM System-R. The high cost of main-memory in the early days forced the use of very small buffers and consequently moderate performance improvements.

Scientific Fundamentals

The buffer is a main-memory area subdivided into frames, and each frame can contain a page from a secondary storage database file. Database pages are requested from the buffer manager. If the requested page is in the buffer, it is immediately returned to the requesting...

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Recommended Reading

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Informatica, Università di Torino, Torino, Italy

    Giovanni Maria Sacco

Authors
  1. Giovanni Maria Sacco
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giovanni Maria Sacco .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Ioannina, P.O. Box 1186, 45110, Ioannina, Greece

    Evaggelia Pitoura

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Sacco, G.M. (2017). Buffer Management. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_858-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_858-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-7993-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-7993-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Computer SciencesReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

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