Analysis method and apparatus for a parallel system

Abstract

A method and apparatus of analyzing a target system comprises receiving information relating to an environment of the target system and storing cost data based on the environment information. The plan and its estimated performance for a query may be determined based on the cost data. The environment information may pertain to the environment of a parallel system (e.g., a multi-node parallel system, a single-node parallel system having plural central processing units or a system running plural virtual processors) that is running a parallel database. The cost data may identify a number of nodes in the target system, a number of central processing units in each node of the target system, and other types of system information. The cost data may be stored in a relational table having a plurality of rows. Each row of the relational table may correspond to a different target system. The cost data is used to emulate the environment of the target system and is usable by an optimizer module to derive a query plan for an SQL (structured query language) query having the lowest (or lower) cost.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.