6.830: Lecture 7 (10/01/09)

This lecture will cover buffer and memory management strategies in database systems.

Read the following paper:

• Hong-Tai Chou and David DeWitt. An Evaluation of Buffer Management Strategies for Relational Database Systems. VLDB, 1985. [PDF]

As you read, think about and come to class prepared to answer the following questions:

• How much better is the hot-set model than simple LRU?
• Under what circumstances is LRU a bad idea?
• Why can these techniques be applied in database systems but not operating systems?