Achieving throughput and functionality in a common architecture: the Datacycle experiment

Abstract

Summary form only given. The Datacycle database architecture is based on repetitive broadcast of database contents over high bandwidth channels and on-the-fly filtering of database contents to extract records of interest. These two mechanisms-high speed broadcast and on-the-fly filtering-result in a system that achieves the goals of high performance transaction processing, a powerful and flexible query capability, and high levels of concurrent access to a single database by multiple applications. The prototype system comprises multiple pump boards, each of which stores up to 128 Mbytes of database contents, and multiple access manager boards, each of which contains three on-board VLSI data filter chips. Each VLSI filter executes queries against the contents of a 53 Mbyte/second broadcast channel; selected records and/or computed aggregate values are returned to the host application.<>