The objective of the HIPERFILE (High Performant Files) concept is to increase the speed of file accesses and to avoid or eliminate I/O bottlenecks by buffering the data in the main memory using the software product DAB (Disk Access Buffer).
The purpose of DAB (Disk Access Buffer) is to provide faster access to disk files by means of caching in the fast main memory (MM).
Main memory is a volatile storage medium that is suitable primarily for the caching of read accesses as well as for write jobs to temporary files. Unsaved write data in the buffer is lost after a system crash if it is on a volatile storage medium.
There are two variants of the HIPERFILE concept, namely ADM PFA caching and user PFA caching:
ADM-PFA caching (administrator-controlled Performant File Access)
This is a variant of the HIPERFILE concept in which systems support uses commands to specify which files or volumes are to be buffered in which cache medium and which caching mode (read, write or read/write mode) is to be used.
User PFA caching (user-controlled Performant File Access)
In this variant of the HIPERFILE concept, the HIPERFILEs are embedded in the Data Management System (DMS). Users decide which of their files on a pubset are to be HIPERFILEs and are thus to benefit from a cache set up by systems support.