A rule-based view of query optimization

The query optimizer is an important system component of a relational database management system (DBMS). It is the responsibility of this component to translate the user-submitted query - usually written in a non-procedural language - into an efficient query evaluation plan (QEP) which is then executed against the database. The research literature describes a wide variety of optimization strategies for different query languages and implementation environments. However, very little is known about how to design and structure the query optimization component to implement these strategies.