Algorithmic Compression (ALC) | Data Types and Literals | Teradata Vantage - Algorithmic Compression (ALC) - Advanced SQL Engine - Teradata Database

In some cases, such as when column values are mostly unique, algorithmic compression can provide better compression results than multi-value compression. Algorithmic compression allows you to define your own compression and decompression algorithms and apply them to data at the column level.

You implement the algorithms as external C/C++ scalar UDFs, and then specify them in the column definition of a CREATE TABLE/ALTER TABLE statement. Teradata Database invokes these algorithms to compress and uncompress the column data when the data is moved into the tables or when data is retrieved from the tables.

Use ALC to implement the compression scheme that is most suitable for data in a particular column. The cost of compression and uncompression depends on the algorithm chosen.

You can specify ALC alone, or both MVC and ALC on the same column. If you define both on the same column, ALC is applied only to those non-null values that are not specified in the value compression list of the MVC specification.