Patent ID: 8250111

Claim:
A method, comprising: in a database, detecting pages having a level of contention higher than a predetermined threshold by measuring a number of times any one of a plurality of transactions had to wait for access to one of said pages; detecting rows within said detected pages having a high access rate; and moving said detected rows from said detected pages to other pages in said database, wherein said detecting pages comprises, monitoring the plurality of transactions involving said pages; determining that the one of said plurality of transactions had to wait for access to the one of said pages; incrementing a page contention counter each time the one of said transactions had to wait for access to the one of said pages; and determining if said page contention counter exceeds the predetermined threshold, and wherein said detecting rows comprises, for those monitored transactions on a given page of said pages: determining if a row was accessed in the given page for which the predetermined threshold was exceeded; incrementing a reference count for said accessed row; and flagging said accessed row when said reference count exceeds a second predetermined threshold.