Dynamic management of memory allocation in a database

Abstract

A method for managing memory allocation in a database receives an invocation of a stored statement defined to allocate objects, each with a stored size. The method determines an actual size relating to the invocation and determines a preferred statement among defined statements with defined object sizes. The defined statements include the stored statement and alternative stored statements that provide an alternative implementation of the stored statement defined to allocate the objects with alternative sizes lower than stored sizes. The preferred statement has defined sizes compliant to actual sizes according to preference criterion based on comparing defined and actual sizes. The method invokes the preferred statement for execution in place of the stored statement when different. The method stores a new statement, having new sizes compliant to actual sizes according to alternate criterion, responsive to unfulfilling a condition based on comparing defined sizes of the preferred statement with actual sizes.

Description

BACKGROUNDTechnical Field[0001]The present invention generally relates to databases, and more particularly to dynamic management of memory allocation in a database.Description of the Related Art[0002]The background of the present invention is hereinafter introduced with the discussion of techniques relating to its context. However, even when this discussion refers to documents, acts, artifacts and the like, it does not suggest or represent that the discussed techniques are part of the prior art or are common general knowledge in the field relevant to the present invention.[0003]Databases are commonly used to store large amount of data in structured form (for example, organized in schemas, tables and views in relational databases); the databases define the data at a logical (or conceptual) level, which abstracts the data from their actual representation at a physical (or internal) level.[0004]The databases generally allow pre-defining and saving stored statements (for example, stored...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, the leveraging of the dynamic memory allocation by the software applications increases their complexity.

However, the static memory allocation may cause a shortage or a waste of the memory available to the databases.

Particularly, this significantly increases the complexity of the software applications that are designed to work with multiple databases (using different types of memory allocation).

Therefore, even a relatively small number of invocations of the stored statements involving the allocation of large objects may case a shortage of the memory that is available to the databases.

These situations are quite difficult (if not impossible) to predict in advance; as a result, they are generally discovered only at runtime when corresponding exceptions are raised by the databases.

All of the above has a detrimental effect on the reliability of the databases, and then of the software applications accessing them.

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