Patent ID: 8010766

Claim:
A method in a table scan manager for managing table scan processes, the method comprising: monitoring a plurality of storage medium table scan processes that are reading data out of blocks of memory in a fast memory to identify a set of data that satisfies a query associated with the scanning processes; placing each storage medium table scan process, in the plurality of storage medium table scan processes, into a set of scans organized as a plurality of scan groups based on blocks of memory in the fast memory to be scanned by each of the storage medium table scan processes, wherein each storage medium table scan process in a scan group shares data within a block of memory with other storage medium table scan process in the scan group; retrieving, for a front most storage medium table scan process in a scan group, a set of data from a slow memory; storing the set of data that has been retrieved into blocks of memory in the fast memory associated with the scan group; and maintaining the set of data in the blocks of memory for all storage medium table scan processes that are subsequent to the front most storage medium table scan process in the scan group.