2024/10/09 by Matthew Rodriguez, Vitaly Aksenov, Rodriguez, Matthew +3 · 1 voice
Computer Science · #Algorithms and Data Compression #Network Packet Processing and Optimization #Network Security and Intrusion Detection #cs.DC #cs.DS
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2410.07466
openalex publication_date 2024/10/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Scalable ordered maps must ensure that range queries, which operate over many consecutive keys, provide intuitive semantics (e.g., linearizability) without degrading the performance of concurrent insertions and removals. These goals are difficult to achieve simultaneously when concurrent data structures are built using only locks and compare-and-swap objects. However, recent innovations in software transactional memory (STM) allow programmers to assume that multi-word atomic operations can be fast and simple. This paper introduces the skip hash, a new ordered map designed around that assumption. It combines a skip list and a hash map behind a single abstraction, resulting in O(1) overheads for most operations. The skip hash makes use of a novel range query manager -- again leveraging STM -- to achieve fast, linearizable range queries that do not inhibit scalability. In performance evaluation, we show that the skip hash outperforms the state of the art in almost all cases. This places the skip hash in the uncommon position of being both exceedingly fast and exceedingly simple.