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Main Authors: Lomet, David, Wang, Rui
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.00208
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author Lomet, David
Wang, Rui
author_facet Lomet, David
Wang, Rui
contents A significant impediment to high performance in key-value stores is the high cost of thread switching or stalls. While there are many sources for this, a major one is the contention for resources. And this cost increases with load as conflicting operations more frequently try to access data concurrently. Traditional latch-based approaches usually handle these situations by blocking one or more contending threads. Latch-free techniques can avoid this behavior. But the payoff may be limited if latch-free techniques require executing wasted work. In this paper, we show how latch-free techniques exploit delta record updating and can significantly reduce wasted work by using notices, a new latch-free approach. This paper explains how notices work and can solve B-tree index maintenance problems, while avoiding thread switches or stalls. Other opportunities for avoiding thread switches or stalls are also discussed.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_00208
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Avoiding Thread Stalls and Switches in Key-Value Stores: New Latch-Free Techniques and More
Lomet, David
Wang, Rui
Databases
A significant impediment to high performance in key-value stores is the high cost of thread switching or stalls. While there are many sources for this, a major one is the contention for resources. And this cost increases with load as conflicting operations more frequently try to access data concurrently. Traditional latch-based approaches usually handle these situations by blocking one or more contending threads. Latch-free techniques can avoid this behavior. But the payoff may be limited if latch-free techniques require executing wasted work. In this paper, we show how latch-free techniques exploit delta record updating and can significantly reduce wasted work by using notices, a new latch-free approach. This paper explains how notices work and can solve B-tree index maintenance problems, while avoiding thread switches or stalls. Other opportunities for avoiding thread switches or stalls are also discussed.
title Avoiding Thread Stalls and Switches in Key-Value Stores: New Latch-Free Techniques and More
topic Databases
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.00208