Systems, apparatus, techniques, articles, and methods include a unified table container for storing data and metadata in pages organized in one or more page chains. A determination is made as to whether the query includes a data definition statement. In response to determining that the query includes a data definition statement, in-memory runtime data is persisted to a persistent volume that is configured to be accessed by the database system. The in-memory runtime data includes one or more first data fields and one or more second data fields that are different from the one or more first data fields. Furthermore, the unified table container includes a persistent runtime data descriptor that is associated with the one or more first data fields and persists the first one or more first data fields when persisting the in-memory runtime data.