Method using virtual replicated tables in a cluster database management system

1. A method for improved data sharing within a cluster of nodes having a database management system, the method comprising:

defining a virtual replicated table in the database management system, the virtual replicated table useable in a hybrid of a shared-cache and shared-nothing architecture and comprising a physically single table sharable among a plurality of cluster nodes for data read operations and the physically single table being not sharable with other cluster nodes for data modification operations;

performing a read operation on virtual replicated table data in a shared-cache mode in a local node using a local buffer cache, the read operation for each requested page performing lock synchronization, caching pages from the virtual replicated table into the local buffer cache, retrieving data from the page, and performing cleanup and page unlocking; and

performing a modification operation on the virtual replicated table data exclusively in a shared-nothing mode, the modification operation shipped to and executed exclusively in the owner node using a local buffer cache in a shared-nothing algorithm and performing lock synchronization, caching pages from the virtual replicated table into the local buffer cache, retrieving and modifying data from the page, and performing cleanup and page unlocking.

2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising ensuring that records of the virtual replicated table are locked for read operations with a local transaction lock (TX-Lock) and modification operations are locked with both local and global TX-Locks across the cluster nodes and wherein the TX-Locks are releasable upon operation completion.

3. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising locking index and internal system pages across cluster nodes using a system-level page-cache lock (P-Lock), the system-level page-cache lock releasable prior to operation completion when the protected page consistency is guaranteed across the cluster.

4. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising assigning a default owner node for each virtual replicated table wherein the owner node ensures the page validity and provides requested pages to a requesting node.

5. The method according to claim 1 , farther comprising defining one or more partitioned tables in a cluster, the cluster comprising one or more virtual replicated tables, operations against the partitioned tables comprising standard shared-nothing architecture operations.

6. The method according to claim 1 , farther comprising defining one or more non-partitioned tables in a cluster, the cluster comprising one or more virtual replicated tables, operations against the non-partitioned tables comprising standard shared-nothing architecture operations.