Choice quote from there:
> Kill the reference architecture and rethink our conception of “database.” The article titled “Architecture of Database System” should be considered harmful. If a system doesn’t have a buffer pool, it can still be a database, and, in fact, I’d prefer not to read any more papers on “databases” that have buffer pools. Instead, I’d prefer you shock me with your radical, new (and useful!) conception of a data management platform.
I wonder how this would compare to things like IMS. It's one of few non-relational databases quite widely used for OLTP, and it has a reputation of (possibly) being really fast.
If you are interested in the life of a query but in a modern distributed database, this blog post from my colleague at Fauna illustrates the data flow of a global transactional database https://blog.fauna.com/the-life-of-a-faunadb-query