Importance

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Abstract

Extensible Markup Language (XML) data is mapped to be stored in an alternative data base management system (DBMS) by generating a plurality of alternative ones of mappings in response to a supplied XML document and corresponding XML schema; evaluating at least a prescribed attribute of each of the plurality of mappings with respect to an expected workload for the storage system; and selecting one of the alternative mappings based on the prescribed attribute which is the most advantageous for the expected system workload. More specifically, applicants employ a unique process that utilizes a unique notion of physical XML Schemas, i.e., P-Schemas; a P-Schema costing procedure; a set of P-Schema rewritings; and a search strategy to heuristically determine the P-Schema with the least cost. Specifically, the unique notion of physical XML Schemas, extend XML Schemas to contain data statistics; a P-Schema can be easily and uniquely mapped into a storage configuration for the target DBMS. The P-Schema costing procedure estimates the cost of evaluating the query workload on the corresponding unique storage configuration. The set of P-Schema rewritings, when successively applied to a P-Schema, yields a space of alternative P-Schemas. These alternative P-Schemas have the property that any XML document that is valid for the initial P-Schema is also valid for any of these alternative P-Schemas. The search strategy examines this space of alternative P-Schemas to heuristically determine the P-Schema with the least cost. The storage configuration derived from this least cost P-Schema is the desired storage configuration to be used to store the XML data in the target DBMS.

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First Claim