Flashing databases: expectations and limitations

Abstract

Flash devices (solid state disks) promise a significant performance improvement for disk-based database processing. However, database storage structures and processing strategies originally designed for magnetic disks prevent the optimal utilization of SSDs. Based on previous work on bench-marking SSDs and a detailed discussion of I/O methods, in this paper, we analyze appropriate execution methods for database processing as well as important parameters and boundaries and present a tool which helps to derive these parameters.