Hekaton (also known as SQL Server In-Memory OLTP) is an

in-memory database An in-memory database (IMDb, or main memory database system (MMDB) or memory resident database) is a database management system that primarily relies on main memory for computer data storage. It is contrasted with database management systems that e ...

for

OLTP Online transaction processing (OLTP) is a type of database system used in transaction-oriented applications, such as many operational systems. "Online" refers to the fact that such systems are expected to respond to user requests and process them i ...

workloads built into

Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server is a proprietary relational database management system developed by Microsoft using Structured Query Language (SQL, often pronounced "sequel"). As a database server, it is a software product with the primary function of ...

. Hekaton was designed in collaboration with

Microsoft Research Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...

and was released in SQL Server 2014. Traditional

RDBMS A relational database (RDB) is a database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) is a type of database management system that stores data in a structured forma ...

systems were designed when memory resources were expensive, and were optimized for

disk storage Disc or disk may refer to: * Disk (mathematics) In geometry, a disk (Spelling of disc, also spelled disc) is the region in a plane (geometry), plane bounded by a circle. A disk is said to be ''closed'' if it contains the circle that constitut ...

. Hekaton is instead optimized for a working set stored entirely in

main memory Computer data storage or digital data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers. The central processin ...

, but is still accessible via

T-SQL Transact-SQL (T-SQL) is Microsoft's and Sybase's proprietary extension to the SQL (Structured Query Language) used to interact with relational databases. T-SQL expands on the SQL standard to include procedural programming, local variables, variou ...

like normal tables. It is fundamentally different from the "DBCC PINTABLE" feature in earlier SQL Server versions. Hekaton was announced at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conference 2012.

References

Databases Microsoft database software {{database-stub