Patent ID: 7424499

Claim:
A system that facilitates time stamping of database records, comprising: a volatile memory that stores a volatile timestamp table which includes a mapping of timestamp information to a transaction ID, active versions of a persistent timestamp table, the transaction ID identifies a database transaction of a database and associated with all record versions touched by the database transaction, the volatile timestamp table stores an active portion of a persistent timestamp table that includes a mapping of a transaction ID to the timestamp information; reference count data that is stored in the volatile timestamp table in association with the transaction ID and the mapped timestamp information, the reference count data indicates a number of record versions touched by the database transaction without timestamps, the reference count data is updated according to a timestamp operation, the timestamp operation replaces the transaction ID associated with an encountered non-time stamped record version with the mapped timestamp information; and a checkpoint component that processes at least one checkpoint to provide a technique for verifying that timestamped records have been written to the database and that garbage collection of the persistent timestamp table can be performed; a transaction entry is deleted from both the volatile timestamp table and the active portion of the persistent timestamp table, the transaction entry is deleted from both the volatile timestamp table and the active portion of the persistent timestamp table when a redo recovery scan point is greater than a log sequence number of a corresponding volatile timestamp table entry as a function of an output of the checkpoint component.