Oracle Rdb's record caching model

In this paper we present a more efficient record based caching model than the conventional page (disk block) based scheme. In a record caching model, individual records are stored together in a section of shared memory to form the cache. Traditional relational database systems have individual pages that are stored together in shared memory to form the cache and records are then extracted from these pages on demand. The record cache model has better memory utilization than the page model and also helps reduce overheads like page fetches/writes, page locks and code path. In May 1996, Oracle Rdb announced a record breaking number of 14227 tpmC on a Digital AlphaServer 8400. At the time, this was the best TPC-C performance achieved on a single SMP machine. A total of 15 record caches, caching 19.5 million records, consuming almost 7 GB of memory, formed the bulk of the shared memory.