Automated system for identifying and dropping marginal database indexes

A method and system for managing indexes used to retrieve data from a database stored on a computer, includes determining whether any marginal indexes exist in the database, and removing one or more of the marginal indexes from the database. An index is considered marginal when: (1) it is an access...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author Burger, Louis M
Format Patent
LanguageEnglish
Published 20.07.2010
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Summary:A method and system for managing indexes used to retrieve data from a database stored on a computer, includes determining whether any marginal indexes exist in the database, and removing one or more of the marginal indexes from the database. An index is considered marginal when: (1) it is an access path for one or more queries but the index's performance is matched or nearly matched by one or more other alternative access paths, and/or (2) its overhead has become a concern. These steps or functions are invoked by one or more statements or instructions that cause the computer to perform a Drop Index Analysis on a specified list of tables in the database for a specified workload. The Drop Index Analysis allows users to specify: (1) how many indexes to consider dropping, and/or (2) how much disk space that dropped indexes should free up.