Patent ID: 7921132

Claim:
A distributed computer system for query processing, comprising: a plurality of servers, each server having a storage services manager for storing a plurality of column chunks across a plurality of servers, the plurality of column chunks resulting from independently partitioning each of a plurality of columns of a table into two or more column chunks such that a first column chunk resulted from partitioning a first column of the table and a second column chunk resulted from partitioning a second column of the table are partially but not completely row-wise aligned; and at least one server of the plurality of servers having a query services module for receiving a query request for processing data stored as one or more of the plurality of column chunks distributed across the plurality of servers; and a network operably coupled to the plurality of servers for communicating a request from the at least one server having the query services module to at least one other server of the plurality of servers where the one or more of the plurality of column chunks identified by the query request are stored for processing of the data stored as the one or more of the plurality of column chunks distributed across the plurality of servers and for communicating results of processing the data from the at least one other server to the at least one server having the query services module.