Performance of B-Tree Concurrency Control Algorithms

Abstract

A number of algorithms have been proposed for accessing B-trees concurrently, but the performance of these algorithms is not yet well understood. In this paper, we study the performance of various concurrency control algorithms using a detailed simulation model of B-tree operations in a centralized DBMS. Our study considers a wide range of data contention situations and resource conditions. Results from our experiments indicate that algorithms in which updaters lock-couple using exclusive locks perform poorly as compared to those that permit more optimistic index descents. In particular, the B-link algorithms provide the most concurrency and the best overall performance. © 1991, ACM. All rights reserved.