Patent ID: 7293036

Claim:
A method to compress a workload including a plurality of statements comprising: providing a distance function in a database management system for a pair of statements within an initial workload W containing a plurality of statements; compressing the initial workload W to generate a compressed workload W′ based on the distance function, the compressed workload W′ including a subset of statements of the plurality of statements of the initial workload W; determining a generation time indicating a length of time to generate the compressed workload W′; establishing a compressed running time indicating a length of time for an application to run the compressed workload W′; establishing a total running time of the application indicating a length of time for the application to run the initial workload W; and estimating a total running time which includes a sum of the generation time and the compressed running time; and determining a limit on the total running time, the limit on the total running time being less then the initial running time; and outputting the generated compressed workload W′.