KDB-X combines columnar storage, in-memory processing, vectorized execution, and an ~800 KB binary to deliver sub-millisecond time-series analytics.
Key Takeaways
Columnar storage lets queries read only relevant columns, cutting I/O and boosting CPU cache efficiency for aggregations on tick data.
The entire KDB-X binary fits in ~800 KB, small enough to reside in CPU cache and eliminate instruction-fetch latency from RAM or disk.
A three-tier architecture (RDB in memory, IDB on fast disk, HDB for petabyte history) keeps hot data fast without blowing storage costs.
Memory-mapped files remove deserialization and buffer-copy overhead; disk pages map directly into the process address space.
The q language executes queries inside the database process using SIMD-style vector ops and functional parallelism across cores, avoiding data movement to Python or Spark.
