Patent ID: 7464106

Claim:
A system for processing a query on a database comprising: a plurality of database operation processor components, with at least two of the database operation processor components having different operation processing capabilities, and such that more than one database operation processor component is capable of executing a selected database operation; a database catalog comprising database table information, database operation processor component locale information, and database operation processor characteristic information; a query optimizer, running on a first database operation processor component, for receiving the query and accessing the database catalog to develop a query execution plan, the query execution plan defining a list of database operations to carry out the query, the query execution plan also defining a respective database operation processor component locale for each such database operation; wherein the first database operation processor component not only executes portions of the query execution plan designated to be handled itself, but also forwards at least a selected portion of the query execution plan to a second database operation processor component having different operation processing capabilities than the first database operation processor component; and wherein the second database operation processor component executes portions of the query execution plan designated for itself, and also forwards other selected portions of the query execution plan to a third database operation component for execution.