STEPS towards Cache-resident Transaction Processing

Online transaction processing (OLTP) is a multibillion dollar industry with high-end database servers employing state-of-the-art processors to maximize performance. Unfortunately, recent studies show that CPUs are far from realizing their maximum intended throughput because of delays in the processor caches. When running OLTP, instruction-related delays in the memory subsystem account for 25 to 40% of the total execution time. In contrast to data, instruction misses cannot be overlapped with out-of-order execution, and instruction caches cannot grow as the slower access time directly affects the processor speed. The challenge is to alleviate the instructionrelated delays without increasing the cache size. We propose Steps, a technique that minimizes instruction cache misses in OLTP workloads by multiplexing concurrent transactions and exploiting common code paths. One transaction paves the cache with instructions, while close followers enjoy a nearly miss-free execution. Steps yields ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: VLDB
• Authors: Stavros Harizopoulos, Anastassia Ailamaki
• Keywords: Cache Misses, Data Cache Misses, Database, Instruction Cache Misses, VLDB 2004