Effect of character data storage type on searching and sorting

Guidewire PolicyCenter stores character data in the following ways:

• Database storage
• In-memory storage

PolicyCenter handles searching and sorting of character data differently for these storage types.

Character data in the database

PolicyCenter writes most application data directly to the database. This action stores the data on a physical disk storage system. Each discrete piece of data is an entry in a table column, with each table being organized by rows. During a comparison and sort of data in the database, the database management system (DBMS) performs the operations and applies rules that control these operations.

Character data in memory

PolicyCenter writes some application data to volatile memory devices, such as the local machine RAM memory. PolicyCenter typically uses this kind of memory storage for the display of certain kinds of data in the user interface. For example, PolicyCenter uses in-memory storage for drop-down lists and the results of list views that do not use database queries. During a comparison and sort of data in memory, programming code provided in the base configuration controls the operations.