QTune: A Query-Aware Database Tuning System with Deep Reinforcement Learning

Summary: QTune uses query featurization and a Double-State DDPG actor–critic model to jointly exploit SQL features and database state for configuration tuning. It supports query-, workload-, and cluster-level tuning across three DBMSs, outperforming prior methods. (summarized by gpt-5.6-luna on Jul 24 2026)

Paper ID: 12120
Venue: VLDB
Year: 2019
Pagerank: 0.00017440583
Overall Rank: 498 | 96.59%
DOI: 10.14778/3352063.3352129

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

1. Guoliang Li (Tsinghua University)
2. Xuanhe Zhou (Tsinghua University)
3. Shifu Li (Huawei)
4. Bo Gao (Huawei)

BibTeX Citation

@article{li_vldb19,
        title = {{QTune: A Query-Aware Database Tuning System with Deep Reinforcement Learning}},
        author = {Li, Guoliang and Zhou, Xuanhe and Li, Shifu and Gao, Bo},
        journal = {PVLDB},
        series = {{VLDB} '19},
        volume = {12},
        number = {12},
        pages = {2118--2130},
        doi = {10.14778/3352063.3352129},
        url = {https://doi.org/10.14778/3352063.3352129},
        year = {2019}
}

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 50 of 83 citing papers.

Rank	Citing Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
465	An End-to-End Learning-based Cost Estimator	2020	VLDB	0.0001803934
1,337	DB-BERT: A Database Tuning Tool that "Reads the Manual"	2022	SIGMOD	0.00011117488
1,344	An Inquiry into Machine Learning-based Automatic Configuration Tuning Services on Real-World Database Management Systems	2021	VLDB	0.00011094717
1,686	Black or White? How to Develop an AutoTuner for Memory-based Analytics	2020	SIGMOD	0.00010008686
1,920	D-Bot: Database Diagnosis System using Large Language Models	2024	VLDB	9.4846185e-05
2,298	GPTuner: A Manual-Reading Database Tuning System via GPT-Guided Bayesian Optimization	2024	VLDB	8.7886538e-05
2,452	A Learned Query Rewrite System using Monte Carlo Tree Search	2022	VLDB	8.5584e-05
2,740	Facilitating Database Tuning with Hyper-Parameter Optimization: A Comprehensive Experimental Evaluation	2022	VLDB	8.1855759e-05
2,762	Cost-based or Learning-based? A Hybrid Query Optimizer for Query Plan Selection	2022	VLDB	8.1539867e-05
2,812	Query Performance Prediction for Concurrent Queries using Graph Embedding	2020	VLDB	8.0979597e-05
2,888	AI Meets Database: AI4DB and DB4AI	2021	SIGMOD	7.9941489e-05
3,116	ResTune: Resource Oriented Tuning Boosted by Meta-Learning for Cloud Databases	2021	SIGMOD	7.7390737e-05
3,343	LlamaTune: Sample-Efficient DBMS Configuration Tuning	2022	VLDB	7.4983591e-05
3,516	LOGER: A Learned Optimizer towards Generating Efficient and Robust Query Execution Plans	2023	VLDB	7.3524442e-05
3,586	Make Your Database System Dream of Electric Sheep: Towards Self-Driving Operation	2021	VLDB	7.2834069e-05
3,587	HUNTER: An Online Cloud Database Hybrid Tuning System for Personalized Requirements	2022	SIGMOD	7.2829345e-05
3,662	openGauss: An Autonomous Database System	2021	VLDB	7.2166682e-05
3,762	HTAP Databases: What is New and What is Next	2022	SIGMOD	7.1449267e-05
3,802	Leaper: A Learned Prefetcher for Cache Invalidation in LSM-tree based Storage Engines	2020	VLDB	7.1115502e-05
3,926	UDO: Universal Database Optimization using Reinforcement Learning	2021	VLDB	7.0128068e-05
3,961	MB2: Decomposed Behavior Modeling for Self-Driving Database Management Systems	2021	SIGMOD	6.987575e-05
4,011	Towards Dynamic and Safe Configuration Tuning for Cloud Databases	2022	SIGMOD	6.959982e-05
4,434	LEON: A New Framework for ML-Aided Query Optimization	2023	VLDB	6.7079088e-05
4,617	Learned Cardinality Estimation for Similarity Queries	2021	SIGMOD	6.604437e-05
4,671	PreQR: Pre-training Representation for SQL Understanding	2022	SIGMOD	6.5732787e-05
4,854	LOCAT: Low-Overhead Online Configuration Auto-Tuning of Spark SQL Applications	2022	SIGMOD	6.4779623e-05
5,023	DBPA: A Benchmark for Transactional Database Performance Anomalies	2023	SIGMOD	6.3979497e-05
5,073	Database Workload Characterization with Query Plan Encoders	2022	VLDB	6.3751266e-05
5,169	LearnedSQLGen: Constraint-aware SQL Generation using Reinforcement Learning	2022	SIGMOD	6.3349035e-05
5,171	An Efficient Transfer Learning Based Configuration Adviser for Database Tuning	2024	VLDB	6.3347618e-05
5,340	Machine Learning for Databases	2021	VLDB	6.2603359e-05
5,573	Eraser: Eliminating Performance Regression on Learned Query Optimizer	2024	VLDB	6.1682747e-05
5,852	DEX: Scalable Range Indexing on Disaggregated Memory	2024	VLDB	6.0658952e-05
5,856	Automatic Database Configuration Debugging using Retrieval-Augmented Language Models	2025	SIGMOD	6.0644656e-05
5,974	Towards instance-optimized data systems	2021	VLDB	6.0230488e-05
5,997	Efficient and Effective Similar Subtrajectory Search with Deep Reinforcement Learning	2020	VLDB	6.0146869e-05
6,132	Detect, Distill and Update: Learned DB Systems Facing Out of Distribution Data	2023	SIGMOD	5.9660278e-05
6,323	Modeling Shifting Workloads for Learned Database Systems	2024	SIGMOD	5.9141228e-05
6,344	Towards General and Efficient Online Tuning for Spark	2023	VLDB	5.9060457e-05
6,357	A Unified Transferable Model for ML-Enhanced DBMS	2022	CIDR	5.9020843e-05
6,600	A Unified and Efficient Coordinating Framework for Autonomous DBMS Tuning	2023	SIGMOD	5.8250114e-05
6,843	Learning to Optimize LSM-trees: Towards A Reinforcement Learning based Key-Value Store for Dynamic Workloads	2023	SIGMOD	5.7573899e-05
6,997	E2ETune: End-to-End Knob Tuning via Fine-tuned Generative Language Model	2025	VLDB	5.7300324e-05
7,360	On the Efficiency of K-Means Clustering: Evaluation, Optimization, and Algorithm Selection	2021	VLDB	5.6340845e-05
7,394	DBMind: A Self-Driving Platform in openGauss	2021	VLDB	5.6259065e-05
7,757	CAMAL: Optimizing LSM-trees via Active Learning	2024	SIGMOD	5.5508469e-05
7,785	Tastes Great! Less Filling! High Performance and Accurate Training Data Collection for Self-Driving Database Management Systems	2022	SIGMOD	5.5450355e-05
7,846	The Holon Approach for Simultaneously Tuning Multiple Components in a Self-Driving Database Management System with Machine Learning via Synthesized Proto-Actions	2024	VLDB	5.5331459e-05
7,978	ADOPT: Adaptively Optimizing Attribute Orders for Worst-Case Optimal Join Algorithms via Reinforcement Learning	2023	VLDB	5.514996e-05
8,042	Grep: A Graph Learning Based Database Partitioning System	2023	SIGMOD	5.5015896e-05

Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 7 of 7 cited papers.

Citations counted here include only citations to other VLDB/SIGMOD/CIDR/PODS papers in this database.

Rank	Cited Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
86	Automatic Database Management System Tuning Through Large-scale Machine Learning	2017	SIGMOD	0.00035316107
334	An End-to-End Automatic Cloud Database Tuning System Using Deep Reinforcement Learning	2019	SIGMOD	0.00020875082
347	Tuning Database Configuration Parameters with iTuned	2009	VLDB	0.00020651582
465	An End-to-End Learning-based Cost Estimator	2020	VLDB	0.0001803934
568	SageDB: A Learned Database System	2019	CIDR	0.0001641553
781	Self-tuning Database Technology and Information Services: from Wishful Thinking to Viable Engineering	2002	VLDB	0.00014085674
7,493	Human-in-the-loop Data Integration	2017	VLDB	5.6046905e-05

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