Implementation of a real-time database system

Abstract

A real-time database system is a database system in which transactions have explicit timing constraints such as deadlines. Apart from satisfying the database consistency constraints, transaction executions must also satisfy these timing constraints. The goal of transaction and query processing in real-time databases is to maximise the number of successful transactions in the system. This paper reports on the design, development and performance evaluation of RT-Genesis, a real-time database management system resulting from modifying an existing commercial DBMS, Genesis. RT-Genesis is a relational database management system that accommodates SQL queries and transactions having time constraints. It features time-cognizant algorithms for scheduling, concurrency control and buffer management. The system has been tested and the performance of the different algorithms compared in isolation as well as in combination with different classes of SQL workloads. In addition, a two-phased approach to transaction execution has also been implemented with the goal of exploiting access invariance to improve predictability. This work demonstrates the feasibility of converting non-real-time DBMSs into real-time DBMSs for firm deadline transactions. Besides reporting on how this was achieved and on the performance of the incorporated algorithms, lessons learned from this experience are also discussed.