Abstract: Embodiments of the invention utilize an improved LSM-tree-based key-value approach to strike the optimal balance between the costs of updates and lookups with any given main memory budget. The improved approach involves allocating memory to Bloom filters differently across different levels so as to minimize the sum of the false positive rates associated with the Bloom filters. In addition, the improved approach may predict the impact of the system design parameter(s) and/or environmental parameter(s) on the lookup performance. Subsequently, the improved approach may “self-tune” the system design parameter(s) and/or environment parameter(s) to maximize the throughput.