@MISC{Ioannidis96queryoptimization, author = {Yannis E. Ioannidis}, title = {Query Optimization}, year = {1996} }
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Abstract
Imagine yourself standing in front of an exquisite buffet filled with numerous delicacies. Your goal is to try them all out, but you need to decide in what order. What exchange of tastes will maximize the overall pleasure of your palate? Although much less pleasurable and subjective, that is the type of problem that query optimizers are called to solve. Given a query, there are many plans that a database management system (DBMS) can follow to process it and produce its answer. All plans are equivalent in terms of their final output but vary in their cost, i.e., the amount of time that they need to run. What is the plan that needs the least amount of time? Such query optimization is absolutely necessary in a DBMS. The cost difference between two alternatives can be enormous. For example, consider the following database schema, which will be...