A Survey of Architectures for Memory Resident Databases
Gordon Russell, W. Paul Cockshott · Edinburgh Napier Research Repository (Edinburgh Napier University) · 1993
Persistent object oriented architectures have been researched for many years, deriving initially from the Manchester University Atlas machine. In reality however, few actual implementations of persistent architectures exist. In the first half of this paper an examination of four well known designs is examined, namely the SYSTEM/38, MONADS, MUTABOR, and the Rekursiv. Each machine’s object management model is explained, along with an analysis of the design decisions made. Following this, a discussion concerning the ideal persistent architecture is presented, suggesting design decisions which should be considered in any future persistent architecture. 1 Historical background The idea of architectural support for persistent programming derives ultimately from the work of Tom Kilburn and others [1] on the Manchester University Atlas computer. They introduced the idea of what was termed a single level store: a notion that is now more familiar to us as virtual memory. During the 1950s machines used a variety of different store technologies: Williams Tubes, mercury delay lines, magnetic cores and moving magnetic devices. Although these media differed considerably in their response times, they were all used in the same conceptual fashion, as the primary store of the