Patent ID: 8595212

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: at least one processor; a memory coupled to the at least one processor; a database residing in the memory; a user-defined index policy residing in the memory, the user-defined index policy specifying criteria for deletion of an index for the database and criteria for creation of a selected index in the database; an index mechanism that receives monitored activity of the database and autonomically deletes the index when the criteria specified in the user-defined index policy is satisfied by the monitored activity; an index advice record engine residing in the memory, the index advice record engine generating a plurality of index advice records that comprise the monitored activity of the database; wherein the index mechanism reads the plurality of index advice records and determines whether information in the plurality of index advice records satisfies the criteria for deletion of the index in the user-defined index policy, and if so, the index mechanism deletes the index; wherein the index mechanism determines whether the selected index was autonomically created in the past and subsequently deleted, and if so, the index mechanism determines whether the selected index was beneficial in the past, and if not, the index mechanism does not create the selected index; and wherein the index mechanism deletes at least one index advice record that advised creation of the selected index if the selected index was not beneficial in the past.