17. The apparatus of claim 16 , wherein the dictionary includes a dictionary template comprising a plurality of key fields, a plurality of non-key fields, and an entry index field, and wherein the encoding template comprises the plurality of non-key fields and a key entry index field.
18. The apparatus of claim 17 , wherein the encoding of the first data record comprises: populating the plurality of key fields, the plurality of non-key fields and the entry index field with a plurality of key bytes, a first plurality of non-key bytes, and an entry index value, respectively, and wherein the encoding of the second data record comprises populating the plurality of non-key fields and the key entry index value field with a second plurality of non-key bytes and a key entry index value.