A method for on-line reorganization of a database

Any database management system may need some type of reorganization. However, reorganization typically requires taking a database off line, which can be unacceptable for a very large or highly available (24-hour) database. A solution is to reorganize on line (concurrently with users' reading and writing of data in the database). This paper describes a method for performing one type of reorganization on line. The type of reorganization distributes free space evenly, removes overflow, and clusters data. The method for on-line reorganization copies data while arranging the data in the new copy in reorganized form. The method then applies the database log to bring the new copy up to date (to reflect users' writing of the old copy). The method maintains a table that maps between old and new record identifiers, to match log entries with data records in the new copy.