Buffer pools are created and managed in database systems in order to reduce the total number of accesses to the I/O devices. In systems using virtual memory, any reduction in I/O accesses may be accompanied by an increase in paging. The effects of these factors on system performance are quantified, where system performance is a function of page faults and database accesses to the I/O devices. A previous study of this phenomenon is extended through the analysis of empirical data gathered in a multifactor experiment. In this study memory is partitioned between the program and the buffer so that the impact of the controlled factors can be more effectively evaluated. It is possible to improve system performance through the use of different paging algorithms in the program partition and the buffer partition. Also, the effects on system performance as the virtual buffer size is increased beyond the real memory allocated to the buffer partition are investigated.

Buffer pools are created and managed in data base systems in order to reduce the total amount of accesses to the I/O devices. The use of the buffer pool in a virtual storage system may cause an increase in the page fault rate. We examine this phenomenon through the analysis of empirical data gathered in a multifactor experiment. The factors we considered were memory size, buffer size, replacement algorithm for memory and buffer management algorithm.

Buffer space is created and managed in database systems in order to reduce accesses to the I/O devices for database information. In systems using virtual memory any increase in the buffer space may be accompanied by an increase in paging. The effects of these factors on system performance are quantified where system performance is a function of page faults and database accesses to I/O devices. This phenomenon is examined through the analysis of empirical data gathered in a multifactor experiment. The factors considered are memory size, size of buffer space, memory replacement algorithm, and buffer management algorithm. The improvement of system performance through an increase in the size of the buffer space is demonstrated. It is also shown that for certain values of the other factors an increase in the size of the buffer space can cause performance to deteriorate.