Patent ID: 8099399

Claim:
A method comprising: determining whether a change in workload of a database system having a plurality of resources has occurred, comprising: formulating one or more investigative queries, each investigative query adapted to test one of a different resource of the database system and a different combination of resources of the database system, and is not explicitly adapted to return desired data from the database system; running the investigative queries on the database system when the database system is in an unloaded state to acquire one or more unloaded performance metrics of the database system corresponding to the resources tested by the investigative queries; running the investigative queries on the database system when the database system is in a loaded state to acquire one or more loaded performance metrics of the database system corresponding to the resources tested by the investigative queries; and, determining whether executing a current workload of the database system, using a current configuration of the database system, will likely result in a problem developing with the database system at a later point in time, comprising: simultaneously with actual execution of the current workload on the database system using the current configuration, performing a simulation of execution of the current workload on the database system using the current configuration, where the simulation of execution is performed more quickly than the actual execution.