The converter holds the information about which logical data pages are assigned to which physical data pages.
If any data pages that are not in the data cache need to be accessed, then a search is first made in the converter for their logical position. The corresponding physical position of the data pages in the data volumes is then determined. The converter is used by all simultaneously active users.
Only the converter pages that contain a mapping of permanent data pages are written to the data volumes with each savepoint. In a restart, the pager can use these pages to restore the converter.
Pages are never displaced from the converter. If necessary, additional pages are taken from the I/O buffer cache. This means that the size of the converter can never be specified explicitly.