Patent ID: 7644063

Claim:
A computer program product comprising a computer readable medium having computer usable program code executable to perform operations for ensuring query execution plan stability in a database management system, the operations of the computer program product when performs by a processor and a memory comprises: binding a static database query to a new query execution plan (QEP) that produces the same result set as an original QEP bound to the static database query; identifying one of the original QEP and the new QEP as a primary QEP; automatically collecting execution statistics for the original QEP and the new QEP; automatically selecting one of the original QEP and the new QEP as the primary QEP in response to completion of the automatic collection of execution statistics, the primary QEP selected such that the automatically selected QEP provides optimal execution performance based on performance criteria in comparison to the automatically unselected QEP, the primary QEP selected based on the execution statistics; and generating a report for a user, the report comprising one or more or execution statistics for the original QEP, execution statistics for the new QEP, the static database query, an identifier of the static database query, an identifier of the QEP automatically selected as the primary QEP, an identifier of the QEP automatically selected as the secondary QEP, a state indicator describing the state of the status indicator; and providing the report to the user in response to a user command.