Lessons learned from the early performance evaluation of Intel Optane DC persistent memory in DBMS

Non-volatile memory (NVM) is an emerging technology, which has the persistence characteristics of large capacity storage devices, while providing the low access latency and byte-addressablity of traditional DRAM memory. In this paper, we provide extensive performance evaluations on a recently released NVM device, Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory (PMem), under different configurations with several micro-benchmark tools. Further, we evaluate OLTP and OLAP database workloads with Microsoft SQL Server 2019 when using PMem as buffer pool or persistent storage. From the lessons learned we share some recommendations for future DBMS design with PMem, e.g. simple hardware or software changes are not enough for the best use of PMem in DBMSs.