Optimizing B+-tree for hybrid memory with in-node hotspot cache and eADR awareness

Abstract

The advance in Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) has changed the traditional DRAM-only memory system. Compared to DRAM, NVM has the advantages of non-volatility and large capacity. However, as the read/write speed of NVM is still lower than that of DRAM, building DRAM/NVM-based hybrid memory systems is a feasible way of adding NVM into the current computer architecture. This paper aims to optimize the well-known B⁺-tree for hybrid memory. The novelty of this study is two-fold. First, we observed that the space utilization of internal nodes in B⁺-tree is generally below 70%. Inspired by this observation, we propose to maintain hot keys in the free space within internal nodes, yielding a new index named HATree (Hotness-Aware Tree). The new idea of HATree is to use the unused space of the parent of leaf nodes (PLNs) as the hotspot data cache. Thus, no extra space is needed, and the in-node hotspot cache can efficiently improve query performance. Second, to further improve the update performance of HATree, we propose to utilize the eADR technology supported by the third-generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processors to enhance HATree with instant log persistence, which results in the new HATree-Log structure. We conduct extensive experiments on real hybrid memory architecture involving DRAM and Intel Optane Persistent Memory to evaluate the performance of HATree and HATree-Log. Three state-of-the-art indices for hybrid memory, namely NBTree, LBTree, and FPTree, are included in the experiments, and the results suggest the efficiency of HATree and HATree-Log.