Patent ID: 8108587
Filing Date: 2012-01-31
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method of managing a database cache, the method comprising: storing a database in one or more persistent computer-readable data storage media, the database comprising a set of pages, each page in the set of pages having a fixed size, each of the pages containing substantive data; receiving, at a computing system, a page read request for a requested page in the set of pages; reserving, by the computing system, an initial block of virtual memory addresses having the fixed size; allocating, by the computing system, a set of physical data storage locations committed to the initial block of virtual memory addresses; reading, by the computing system, the requested page from the persistent computer-readable data storage media; storing, by the computing system, a copy of the requested page into the set of physical data storage locations, a minimum commit size being a minimum number of bytes that an operating system of the computing system is configured to allocate, the copy of the requested page comprising the substantive data of the requested page and available free space, the size of the available free space being equal to the fixed size minus a smallest multiple of the minimum commit size that is greater than a size of the substantive data, the substantive data being associated with a first set of virtual memory addresses within the initial block of virtual memory addresses, the available free space being associated with a second set of virtual memory addresses within the initial block of virtual memory addresses; after storing the copy of the requested page, deallocating, by the computing system, an available set of physical data storage locations committed to the second set of virtual memory addresses; and returning, by the computing system, a reference to the copy of the requested page as a response to the page read request.