System and method for utilizing compression in database caches to facilitate access to database information

摘要

A system and method are disclosed for utilizing compression in database caches to facilitate access to database information. In contrast with applying compression to the database that is stored on disk, the present invention achieves performance advantages by using compression within the main memory database cache used by a database management system to manage data transfers to and from a physical database file stored on a storage system or stored on a networked attached device or node. The disclosed system and method thereby provide a significant technical advantage by increasing the effective database cache size. And this effective increase in database cache size can greatly enhance the operations-per-second capability of a database management system by reducing unnecessary disk or network accesses thereby reducing data access times.