Embodiments of the present invention provide a database system that is optimized by using hardware acceleration. The system may be implemented in several variations to accommodate a wide range of queries and database sizes. In some embodiments, the system may comprise a host system that is coupled to one or more hardware accelerator components. The host system may execute software or provide an interface for receiving queries. The host system analyzes and parses these queries into tasks. The host system may then select some of the tasks and translate them into machine code instructions, which are executed by one or more hardware accelerator components. The tasks executed by hardware accelerators are generally those tasks that may be repetitive or processing intensive. Such tasks may include, for example, indexing, searching, sorting, table scanning, record filtering, and the like.