Patent ID: 6999967

Claim:
A method of joining a first table t 1 and a second table t 2 , each table containing rows and columns and being divided into one or more partitions, the method including: (a) calculating a correlation function between a first correlated value column of table t 1 and a second correlated value column of table t 2 ; (b) receiving a query requesting a join between table t 1 and table t 2 ; and (c) performing a joining algorithm, wherein the partitions containing the rows to be joined are determined based at least in part upon the correlation function, wherein the joining algorithm comprises: (c1) calculating, based at least in part upon the correlation function, a first number f 1 and a second number f 2 , wherein f 1 and f 2 denote the number of partitions of table t 1 and table t 2 , respectively, to be joined; (c2) determining, based at least in part upon the correlation function, a first starting partition number P 1 for table t 1 and a second starting partition number P 2 for table t 2 ; (c3) joining a set of f 2 partitions of table t 2 starting at P 2 with a set of f 1 partitions of table t 1 starting at P 1 ; (c4) updating P 1 and P 2 .