Recovery in Main Memory Databases

With Main Memory DataBases (MMDB) the primary copy of the data resides in volatile main memory. Thus an MMDB is more vulnerable to failures than conventional Disk Resident DataBases (DRDB). This plus the fact that MMDB systems are targeted to high throughput applications, such as phone switching databases, complicates recovery. In this paper we provide an overview of the issues associated with MMDB recovery and briefly examine some of the solutions. 1 Introduction In a Main Memory Database (MMDB) all or a major portion of the database is placed in main memory. What is important is the perception of where data resides. With an MMDB the DBMS software is designed assuming the data is memory resident. With a Disk Resident Database (DRDB) the DBMS is designed assuming the data is stored on disk and I/O is required to access the data. MMDB systems are targeted to applications which require high throughput and fast response time. Examples of such applications include ATM bank account informa..