International Business Machines Corporation

Robert T Berks

Miroslaw Adam Flasza

Matthew Albert Huras

Michael Jeffrey Winer

David Tremaine

Leo Tat Man Lau

Sam Sampson Lightstone

Aamer U Sachedina

Keriley Kay Romanufa

Gary Valentin

Catherine Suzanne McArthur

Leo T M Lau

Mark Donald Leitch

The invention herein provides method and apparatus for managing attribute-tagged index entries contained in an index by assigning or tagging an index entry attribute indicator to a newly inserted index entry (that is, at the time when a key data value is inserted into the index, the key data value becomes a newly inserted index entry and an attribute indicator is tagged to the newly inserted index entry). The index entry can be placed anywhere within the index. Once a group of attribute-tagged index entries have been inserted into the index, the attribute identifiers can be switched off instantaneously (that is, the attribute associated with the attribute indicators is disabled).

Managing attributed-tagged index entries

The use of a centralized version table allows for efficient object switching. Rather than synchronizing all database agents to recognize a newly created file as containing the most recent version of a given object, database agents requiring access to the given object need only consult the centralized version table to learn file identity information. That is, the database agents consult the centralized version table to determine which of the files associated with a given object contain the most recent version of the given object. Mechanisms associated with the use of the centralized version table also provide for efficient recovery from a failure that has occurred during an object switching transaction.

System and method for decoupling object identification for the purpose of object switching in database systems

A system and associated method load an input data stream into a multi-dimensional clustering (MDC) table or other structure containing data clustered along one or more dimensions, by assembling blocks of data in a partial block cache in which each partial block is associated with a distinct logical cell. A minimum threshold number of partial blocks may be maintained. Partial blocks may be spilled from the partial block cache to make room for new logical cells. Last partial pages of spilled partial blocks may be stored in a partial page cache to limit I/O if the cell associated with a spilled block is encountered later in the input data stream. Buffers may be reassigned from the partial block cache to the partial page cache if the latter is filled. Parallelism may be employed for efficiency during sorting of input data subsets and during storage of blocks to secondary storage.

System and method for adaptively loading input data into a multi-dimensional clustering table

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Auckland, New Zealand

Robert T Berks