Patent ID: 8560499

Claim:
A method of creating a smaller instance of a database while substantially retaining data skew, comprising: identifying a main database for which a test process is to be executed wherein the test process tests an application and wherein the application uses the main database during execution; determining a data distribution function for the main database, the data distribution function being relevant to and based on the test process to be executed; determining identities of one or more parameters associated with the application; extracting parameters of the data distribution from the main database based on the determined identities of the one or more parameters; and creating a separate test instance of the main database using the extracted parameters and the determined data distribution function, wherein only the extracted parameters within a predetermined range of an endpoint of the distribution are stored to the separate test instance, such that the data skew of the main database is substantially maintained in the separate test instance based on the extracted parameters and the determined data distribution function relevant to the test process to be executed, the separate test instance being smaller than the main database but maintaining characteristics of the main database based on the maintained data skew.