Storage and Index

Chapter 8, 9

Modified by Donghui Zhang

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Low-Level Storage Device

DBMS stores information on (hard) disks. (Tertiary storage like tape is used only for archive or backup purposes.) This has major implications for DBMS design!

READ: transfer data from disk to main memory (RAM). WRITE: transfer data from RAM to disk. Both are high-cost operations, relative to in-memory operations, so must be planned carefully!

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Why Not Store Everything in Main Memory?

Costs too much. Disk is much cheaper than memory. Main memory is volatile. We want data to be saved between runs. (Obviously!) Typical storage hierarchy:

Main memory (RAM) for currently used data. Disk for the main database (secondary storage). Tapes for archiving older versions of the data (tertiary storage).
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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Disks
Secondary storage device of choice. Main advantage over tapes: random access vs. sequential. Data is stored and retrieved in units called disk blocks or pages. Unlike RAM, time to retrieve a disk page varies depending upon location on disk.

Therefore, relative placement of pages on disk has major impact on DBMS performance!
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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Components of a Disk
Disk head

Spindle Tracks

The platters spin (say, 90rps).

Sector

The arm assembly is moved in or out to position a head on a desired track. Tracks under heads make a cylinder (imaginary!). Only one head reads/writes at any one time.

Arm movement

Platters

Block size is a multiple of sector size (which is fixed).

Arm assembly

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Top view

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Top view

Track one

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Top view
2 Sector one 3 4

1
8 7 6

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Accessing a Disk Page

Time to access (read/write) a disk block:

seek time (moving arms to position disk head on track) rotational delay (waiting for block to rotate under head) transfer time (actually moving data to/from disk surface)
Seek time varies from about 1 to 20msec Rotational delay varies from 0 to 10msec Transfer rate is about 1msec per 4KB page

Seek time and rotational delay dominate.

Key to lower I/O cost: reduce seek/rotation delays! Hardware vs. software solutions?
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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Arranging Pages on Disk

`Next block concept:

blocks on same track, followed by blocks on same cylinder, followed by blocks on adjacent cylinder

Blocks in a file should be arranged sequentially on disk (by `next), to minimize seek and rotational delay. For a sequential scan, pre-fetching several pages at a time is a big win!

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 10

Index Design

How to store a table of records?

Name Donghui Zhang James Bond Betty Wu Jessica Greene Frank Gates Tim Varner Stephanie Chen Age 33 55 21 21 33 55 33 Phone 617-373-2177 617-324-6685 951-666-8888 417-332-6659 433-222-1956 617-333-6782 951-243-0104
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SSN 0123 0222 2418 3325 3891 6632 9688

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Index Design Requirement

Basic requirement:
Keep all data! Store in a paginated file. Allow browsing of data.

Efficiency requirement:
Efficient search (on SSN, age, etc.). Efficient insertion/deletion/update. Efficient index size.

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

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Index Types

A primary index is an index which controls the actual storage of a table. Typically this index is built using the primary key of the table.
A data entry is one record of the table.

A secondary index is an index which is built using some other attribute(s).

A data entry contains a set of RIDs.

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

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An Example
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0123 Donghui 33 Zhang 0222 James Bond 2418 Betty Wu 55 21 617-3732177 617-3246685 951-6668888

primary index

3325 6632

30
6632 Tim Varner 9688 Stephanie Chen 55 33 617-3336782 951-2430104

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417-3326659 433-2221956 33

secondary index
21: {10, 20} 33: {10, 20, 30} 55: {10, 30}
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3325 Jessica 21 Greene 3891 Frank Gates

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Some Notes on RID

Conceptually, RID is composed of a pageID (in the primary index) and an localID used to identify the record (e.g. local rank). In practice, only store the pageID! Reason 1: compact index (e.g. if multiple records in the same primary index page have the same age) Reason 2: local rank may change frequently.

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

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Disk Space Management

Lowest layer of DBMS software manages space on disk. Higher levels call upon this layer to:

allocate/de-allocate a page read/write a page

Request for a sequence of pages must be satisfied by allocating the pages sequentially on disk! Higher levels dont need to know how this is done, or how free space is managed.
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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Buffer Management in a DBMS

Page Requests from Higher Levels
BUFFER POOL

disk page
free frame

MAIN MEMORY
DISK

DB

choice of frame dictated by replacement policy

Data must be in RAM for DBMS to operate on it! Table of <frame#, pageid> pairs is maintained.

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 17

When a Page is Requested ...

If requested page is not in pool:

Choose a frame for replacement If frame is dirty, write it to disk Read requested page into chosen frame

Pin the page and return its address.

If requests can be predicted (e.g., sequential scans) pages can be pre-fetched several pages at a time!
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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

More on Buffer Management

Requestor of page must unpin it, and indicate whether page has been modified:

dirty bit is used for this.

Page in pool may be requested many times,

a pin count is used. A page is a candidate for replacement iff pin count = 0.

CC & recovery may entail additional I/O when a frame is chosen for replacement. (Write-Ahead Log protocol; more later.)
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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Buffer Replacement Policy

Frame is chosen for replacement by a replacement policy:

Least-recently-used (LRU), Clock, MRU etc.

Policy can have big impact on # of I/Os; depends on the access pattern. Sequential flooding: Nasty situation caused by LRU + repeated sequential scans.

# buffer frames < # pages in file means each page request causes an I/O. MRU much better in this situation (but not in all situations, of course).
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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

DBMS vs. OS File System

OS does disk space & buffer mgmt: why not let OS manage these tasks? Differences in OS support: portability issues Some limitations, e.g., files cant span disks. Buffer management in DBMS requires ability to:

pin a page in buffer pool, force a page to disk (important for implementing CC & recovery), adjust replacement policy, and pre-fetch pages based on access patterns in typical DB operations.
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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Record Formats: Fixed Length

F1
L1

F2
L2

F3
L3

F4
L4

Base address (B)

Address = B+L1+L2

Information about field types same for all records in a file; stored in system catalogs. Finding ith field does not require scan of record.

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 22

Record Formats: Variable Length

Two alternative formats (# fields is fixed):

F1 F2 F3 F4

4
Field Count

Fields Delimited by Special Symbols

F1 F2 F3 F4

Array of Field Offsets Second offers direct access to ith field, efficient storage of nulls (special dont know value); small directory overhead.
Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 23

Page Formats: Fixed Length Records

Slot 1 Slot 2 Slot 1 Slot 2 Free Space Slot N Slot M N PACKED number of records 1 . . . 0 1 1M M ... 3 2 1 UNPACKED, BITMAP number of slots

...
Slot N

...

Record

id = <page id, slot #>. In first alternative, moving records for free space management changes rid; may not be acceptable.
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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Page Formats: Variable Length Records

Rid = (i,N) Rid = (i,2) Rid = (i,1) Page i

20 N

...

16 2

24 N 1 # slots

SLOT DIRECTORY

Pointer to start of free space

Can

move records on page without changing rid; so, attractive for fixed-length records too.
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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Files of Records

Page or block is OK when doing I/O, but higher levels of DBMS operate on records, and files of records. FILE: A collection of pages, each containing a collection of records. Must support:

insert/delete/modify record read a particular record (specified using record id) scan all records (possibly with some conditions on the records to be retrieved)
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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Unordered (Heap) Files

Simplest file structure contains records in no particular order. As file grows and shrinks, disk pages are allocated and de-allocated. To support record level operations, we must:

keep track of the pages in a file keep track of free space on pages keep track of the records on a page

There are many alternatives for keeping track of this.

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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Heap File Implemented as a List

Data Page
Header Page

Data Page

Data Page

Full Pages

Data Page

Data Page

Data Page

Pages with Free Space

The header page id and Heap file name must be stored someplace. Each page contains 2 `pointers plus data.

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 28

Heap File Using a Page Directory

Header Page Data Page 1

Data Page 2

DIRECTORY

Data Page N

The entry for a page can include the number of free bytes on the page. The directory is a collection of pages; linked list implementation is just one alternative.

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Much smaller than linked list of all HF pages!

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