The Hekaton Memory-Optimized OLTP Engine.

Abstract

Hekaton is a new OLTP engine optimized for memory resident data and fully integrated into SQL Server; a database can contain both regular disk-based tables and in-memory tables. In-memory (a.k.a.Hekaton) tables are fully durable and accessed using standard T-SQL. A query can reference both Hekaton tables and regular tables and a transaction can update data in both types of tables. T-SQL stored procedures that reference only Hekaton tables are compiled into machine code for further performance improvements. To allow for high concurrency the engine uses latch-free data structures and optimistic, multiversion concurrency control. This paper gives an overview of the design of the Hekaton engine and reports some initial results. 1