Recovery algorithms for in-memory OLTP databases

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-66).Fine-grained, record-oriented write-ahead logging, as exemplified by systems like ARIES, has been the gold standard for relational database recovery. In this thesis, we show that in modern high-throughput transaction processing systems, this is no longer the optimal way to recover a database system. In particular, as transaction throughputs get higher, ARIES-style logging starts to represent a non-trivial fraction of the overall transaction execution time. We propose a lighter weight, coarse-grained command logging technique which only records the transactions that were executed on the database. It then does recovery by starting from a transactionally consistent checkpoint and replaying the commands in the log as if they were new transactions. By avoiding the overhead of fine-grained, page-level logging of before and after images (and substantial associated I/O), command logging can yield significantly higher throughput at run-time. Recovery times for command logging are higher compared to ARIES, but especially with the advent of high-availability techniques that can mask the outage of a recovering node, recovery speeds have become secondary in importance to run-time performance for most applications. We evaluated our approach on an implementation of TPC-C in a main memory database system (VoltDB), and found that command logging can offer 1.5x higher throughput than a main-memory optimized implementation of ARIES.by Nirmesh Malviya.S.M

Instant restore after a media failure

Media failures usually leave database systems unavailable for several hours until recovery is complete, especially in applications with large devices and high transaction volume. Previous work introduced a technique called single-pass restore, which increases restore bandwidth and thus substantially decreases time to repair. Instant restore goes further as it permits read/write access to any data on a device undergoing restore--even data not yet restored--by restoring individual data segments on demand. Thus, the restore process is guided primarily by the needs of applications, and the observed mean time to repair is effectively reduced from several hours to a few seconds. This paper presents an implementation and evaluation of instant restore. The technique is incrementally implemented on a system starting with the traditional ARIES design for logging and recovery. Experiments show that the transaction latency perceived after a media failure can be cut down to less than a second and that the overhead imposed by the technique on normal processing is minimal. The net effect is that a few "nines" of availability are added to the system using simple and low-overhead software techniques

Designing Software Architectures As a Composition of Specializations of Knowledge Domains

This paper summarizes our experimental research and software development activities in designing robust, adaptable and reusable software architectures. Several years ago, based on our previous experiences in object-oriented software development, we made the following assumption: ‘A software architecture should be a composition of specializations of knowledge domains’. To verify this assumption we carried out three pilot projects. In addition to the application of some popular domain analysis techniques such as use cases, we identified the invariant compositional structures of the software architectures and the related knowledge domains. Knowledge domains define the boundaries of the adaptability and reusability capabilities of software systems. Next, knowledge domains were mapped to object-oriented concepts. We experienced that some aspects of knowledge could not be directly modeled in terms of object-oriented concepts. In this paper we describe our approach, the pilot projects, the experienced problems and the adopted solutions for realizing the software architectures. We conclude the paper with the lessons that we learned from this experience