Patent ID: 7139749

Claim:
A method for tuning a database query for a computer database, comprising: providing a base access plan to implement the database query; providing statistics including information on a layout of the database against which the query will be executed; processing the statistics to determine performance problems with the base access plan as part of a first analysis of the base access plan; processing the determined performance problems as part of a second analysis to provide an analysis of the determined performance problems and processing cost of the base access plan; generating and displaying recommendations to tune the base access plan to improve performance; receiving selection of one of the displayed recommendations to tune the base access plan; and modifying the base access plan with the selected displayed recommendation; processing the analysis of the determined performance problems resulting from the second analysis and the generated recommendations to generate optimization hints, wherein the optimization hints indicate modifications to the base access plan to produce a modified access plan having improved performance over the base access plan; generating a user interface providing a visualization of the optimization hints.