Empress' Shared Memory Utility lets users enhance the performance of the Empress RDBMS by using Shared Memory, an operating system feature that allows several processes to share a specified section of main memory. By using Shared Memory to reduce file I/O, database performance can be improved.

• By placing Lock Information and Locks in Shared Memory rather than in files, multiple database processes can access Lock Information and Locks with improved performance.
• Global Buffers allow data from "one or more" files to be kept in Shared Memory for access by one or more processes. This enhances data access to those files.
• Mapped Files allow data from "one or more" files to be kept in Shared Memory and do so in a manner different from Global Buffers. Again, this will enhance data access to those particular files.