An Efficient Latch-Free Database Index Based On Multi-Dimensional Lists

In the interests of improving database performance, researchers have considered lock-free data structures for their attractive progress guarantees and scalability. This paper considers the performance of a recently developed lock-free structure, multi-dimensional list (MDList), used as a database index in SOS, a high-performance, object-oriented database. In our tests, we find that MDList outperforms the existing locking structures in multi-threaded workloads. This is the first known use of MDList as an index structure in databases