120 Introduction to the New Mainframe: Large-Scale Commercial Computing
6.10 Random access to data
The RAID design provides a much greater capability for processing data than the
previous generation of DASD. However, the first request to read a data record
requires the component parts to be retrieved from the internal disks, and this is a
relatively long operation. After the first reference is complete, the data will be in
cache and therefore subject to high-speed retrieval. The problem with this,
however, can be illustrated with an example from the banking industry.
The key piece of information relating to a client account is the account number,
and a large bank will potentially have millions of these numbers. An increasing
number of clients ...