Learned Indexes and Database Reliability: Performance with Explicit Failure Bounds
Keywords:
learned indexes, databases, reliability, performance, data structuresAbstract
This review examines learned indexes in reliable database systems. The organizing question is when learned data structures improve performance without weakening correctness, predictability, and maintainability. Ten related scholarly sources are synthesized through a decision-centered framework spanning problem definition, mechanism, measurement, evaluation, implementation, and governance. The review does not invent experiments, pooled estimates, or unreported quantitative results. It instead evaluates the strength and transferability of the available evidence, with particular attention to generalizing speedups from stationary key distributions to evolving production data. The resulting framework links technical or empirical performance to explicit use conditions and identifies tests that should precede wider adoption in data-management systems with strict correctness requirements.
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