Indexing Transactions in OI10

We have modified the module which updates indexes in OpenInsight 10. Reduced locking contention and improved performance were the main objectives. The structure of btree indexes remains unchanged except for the removal of some size limits. The remainder of this post discusses the changes. The author assumes you are familiar with OpenInsight and the details of indexes in revelation software products.

• Index updates quickly lock/unlock the zero record in the indexing file. Index updates do not block processes which write records.
• Index rebuilds occur in memory, with a single pass through the data file. Index rebuilds are much faster than in earlier versions
• Index updates switch to rebalance mode when many transactions are queued. Rebalance is similar to the new rebuild process, very performant when processing a large queue of updates
• The dedicated indexer processes indexes to completion rather than in small chunks. This eliminates a lot of overhead and locking contention.
• Changing the field number, justification or output conversion of an indexed item causes OpenInsight to update the indexing information.