An evaluation of Starburst´s memory resident storage component

As part of the Starburst extensible database project, the authors have designed and implemented a memory resident storage component that can coexist along side traditional disk-oriented storage components. The memory resident storage component shares the code of Starburst´s common services, such as query optimization, plan generation, query evaluation, record manipulation, and transaction management. The design of Starburst´s memory resident storage component is discussed, contrasted with Starburst´s default disk-oriented storage component, and compared to the performance of the two storage components using the Wisconsin Benchmarks. The results show that a memory resident storage component can perform significantly better than a disk-oriented storage component, even when the disk-oriented storage component has all of its data cached in memory. The benchmark results show that, by using memory resident techniques, overall query execution can be improved by up to a factor of four