NonStop SQL supports B+ tree index. By default, the primary key is used as the index of a table. To speed up the non-primary key look up, an index table can be created based on selected columns.
The data of every table is stored in one or more disk files. Each disk file has a label storing the name and catalog information of the associated table.
Whenever a view is created, NonStop SQL stores a view definition instead of the materialized table. Whenever a user selects data from a view, the data is directly retrieved from the underlying base tables.
NonStop SQL supports the basic features of relational database management systems. What distinguish it from many other relational DBMS are the additional features providing excellent OLTP performance, availability, and scalability.