Patent ID: 8145652

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving, via a processor, a logical table definition in association with a database query within a distributed database system; determining whether the received logical table definition matches a local logical table definition, where determining whether the received logical table definition matches the local logical table definition comprises: comparing at least one of a column name and a column data type of the received logical table definition with at least one of a column name and a column data type of the local logical table definition; and identifying a match for the at least one of the column name and the column data type of the received logical table definition at a position within the local logical table definition different from a position of the at least one of the column name and the column data type within the received logical table definition; processing the query in response to determining that the received logical table definition matches the local logical table definition; and forwarding the query to at least one other distributed database node.