We introduce a new concept of leveraging traditional data statistics as dynamic data integrity constraints. These data statistics produce transient database constraints, which are valid as long as they can be proven to be consistent with the current data. We denote this type of data statistics by constraint data statistics , their properties needed for consistency checking by consistency metadata , and their implied integrity constraints by implied data statistics constraints ( implied constraints for short). Implied constraints are valid integrity constraints which are powerful query optimization tools employed, just as traditional database constraints, in semantic query transformation (aka query reformulation), partition pruning, runtime optimization, and semi-join reduction, to name a few. To our knowledge, this is the first work introducing this novel and powerful concept of deriving implied integrity constraints from data statistics. We discuss theoretical aspects of the constraint data statistics concept and their integration into query processing. We present the current architecture of data statistics management in SAP HANA and detail how constraint data statistics are designed and integrated into this architecture. As an instantiation of this framework, we consider dynamic partition pruning for data aging scenarios. We discuss our current implementation for constraint data statistics objects in SAP HANA which can be used for dynamic partition pruning. We enumerate their properties and show how consistency checking for implied integrity constraints is supported in the data statistics architecture. Our experimental evaluations on the TPC-H benchmark and a real customer application confirm the effectiveness of the implied integrity constraints; (1) for 59% of TPC-H queries, constraint data statistics utilization results in pruning cold partitions and reducing memory consumption, and (2) we observe up to 3 orders of magnitude speed-up in query processing time, for a real customer running an S/4HANA application.

In-memory columnar databases such as SAP HANA achieve extreme performance by means of vector processing over logical units of main memory resident columns. The core in-memory algorithms can be challenged when the working set of an application does not fit into main memory. To deal with memory pressure, most in-memory columnar databases evict candidate columns (or tables) using a set of heuristics gleaned from recent workload. As an alternative approach, we propose to reduce the unit of load and eviction from column to a contiguous portion of the in-memory columnar representation, which we call a page. In this paper, we adapt the core algorithms to be able to operate with partially loaded columns while preserving the performance benefits of vector processing. Our approach has two key advantages. First, partial column loading reduces the mandatory memory footprint for each column, making more memory available for other purposes. Second, partial eviction extends the in-memory lifetime of partially loaded column. We present a new in-memory columnar implementation for our approach, that we term page loadable column. We design a new persistency layout and access algorithms for the encoded data vector of the column, the order-preserving dictionary, and the inverted index. We compare the performance attributes of page loadable columns with those of regular in-memory columns and present a use-case for page loadable columns for cold data in data aging scenarios. Page loadable columns are completely integrated in SAP HANA, and we present extensive experimental results that quantify the performance overhead and the resource consumption when these columns are deployed.

One of the core principles of the SAP HANA database system is the comprehensive support of distributed query facility. Supporting scale-out scenarios was one of the major design principles of the system from the very beginning. Within this paper, we first give an overview of the overall functionality with respect to data allocation, metadata caching and query routing. We then dive into some level of detail for specific topics and explain features and methods not common in traditional disk-based database systems. In summary, the paper provides a comprehensive overview of distributed query processing in SAP HANA database to achieve scalability to handle large databases and heterogeneous types of workloads.