20140324875 | INDEX FOR FAST BATCH UPDATES OF LARGE DATA TABLES - Systems and processes for managing data using a composite index formed from a major sub-index and zero or more minor sub-indexes are described. Updates to the data may be cached in memory. When the cache memory becomes full, the contents of the cache may be sorted and stored as entries in a minor sub-index in a hard-disk drive with a single streaming disk write. In response to a threshold condition, the major sub-index may be updated using streaming disk accesses based on the entries in the minor sub-indexes. Once the major sub-index is updated to include all of the updates from the minor sub-indexes, the minor sub-indexes may be deleted. | 10-30-2014 |