MEMORY COMPACTION MECHANISM FOR MAIN MEMORY DATABASES

摘要

The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for performing memory compaction in a main memory database. The main memory database stores records within pages which are organized in doubly linked lists within partition heaps. The memory compaction process uses quasi-updates to move records from a page to the emptied to an active page in a partition heap. The quasi-updates create a new version of the record in the active page, the new version having the same data contents as the old version of the record. The creation of the new version can be performed using a transaction that employs wait for dependencies to allow the old version of the record to be read while the transaction is creating the new version thereby minimizing the effect of the memory compaction process on other transactions in the main memory database.