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Analyzing the Impact of Cardinality Estimation on Execution Plans in Microsoft SQL Server
Summary: Empirical study of cardinality-estimation effects on plan quality in Microsoft SQL Server using complex real-world queries (aggregates, outer joins, subqueries) and both row- and column-oriented layouts. Introduces a sensitivity analysis that selectively supplies accurate subexpression cardinalities while injecting graded errors, and evaluates runtime mitigations (bitmap filtering, adaptive joins).
(summarized by gpt-5-mini on Feb 09 2026)
- Paper ID
- 13129
- Venue
- VLDB
- Year
- 2023
- Pagerank
- 5.4011156e-05
- Overall Rank
- 5,633 | 60.82%
- DOI
-
10.14778/3611479.3611494
Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time
Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)
Showing 13 of 13 citing papers.
| Rank |
Citing Paper |
Year |
Venue |
Pagerank |
| 6,969 |
LpBound: Pessimistic Cardinality Estimation using ℓp-Norms of Degree Sequences |
2025 |
SIGMOD |
4.8799937e-05 |
| 8,020 |
The Holon Approach for Simultaneously Tuning Multiple Components in a Self-Driving Database Management System with Machine Learning via Synthesized Proto-Actions |
2024 |
VLDB |
4.6040862e-05 |
| 8,207 |
SQLStorm: Taking Database Benchmarking into the LLM Era |
2025 |
VLDB |
4.5583637e-05 |
| 8,448 |
PARQO: Penalty-Aware Robust Plan Selection in Query Optimization |
2024 |
VLDB |
4.5100508e-05 |
| 8,582 |
Towards Query Optimizer as a Service (QOaaS) in a Unified LakeHouse Ecosystem: Can One QO Rule Them All? |
2025 |
CIDR |
4.492033e-05 |
| 8,834 |
ByteCard: Enhancing ByteDance’s Data Warehouse with Learned Cardinality Estimation |
2024 |
SIGMOD |
4.4394021e-05 |
| 9,187 |
POLAR: Adaptive and Non-invasive Join Order Selection via Plans of Least Resistance |
2024 |
VLDB |
4.3780059e-05 |
| 9,747 |
Still Asking: How Good Are Query Optimizers, Really? |
2025 |
VLDB |
4.2897489e-05 |
| 9,960 |
An Elephant Under The Microscope: Analyzing The Interaction Of Optimizer Components In PostgreSQL |
2025 |
SIGMOD |
4.2294678e-05 |
| 10,125 |
Understanding and Detecting Query Performance Regression in Practical Index Tuning: [Experiments & Analysis] |
2026 |
SIGMOD |
4.1945683e-05 |
| 10,217 |
This is Going to Sound Crazy, But What If We Used Large Language Models to Boost Automatic Database Tuning Algorithms By Leveraging Prior History? We Will Find Better Configurations More Quickly Than Retraining From Scratch! |
2026 |
SIGMOD |
4.1945683e-05 |
| 10,445 |
LpBound in Action: Cardinality Estimation with One-Sided Guarantees |
2025 |
SIGMOD |
4.1945683e-05 |
| 10,699 |
The Accuracy of Cardinality Estimators: Unraveling the Evaluation Result Conundrum |
2025 |
VLDB |
4.1945683e-05 |
Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)
Showing 17 of 17 cited papers.
Citations counted here include only citations to other VLDB/SIGMOD/CIDR/PODS papers in this database.
| Rank |
Cited Paper |
Year |
Venue |
Pagerank |
| 71 |
How Good Are Query Optimizers, Really? |
2016 |
VLDB |
0.00059038975 |
| 99 |
On the Propagation of Errors in the Size of Join Results |
1991 |
SIGMOD |
0.00050022914 |
| 204 |
Learned Cardinalities: Estimating Correlated Joins with Deep Learning |
2019 |
CIDR |
0.00034784455 |
| 454 |
An Overview of Query Optimization in Relational Systems |
1998 |
PODS |
0.00022734812 |
| 629 |
Preventing Bad Plans by Bounding the Impact of Cardinality Estimation Errors |
2009 |
VLDB |
0.00018942366 |
| 650 |
Robust Query Processing through Progressive Optimization |
2004 |
SIGMOD |
0.00018659177 |
| 1,223 |
Enhancements to SQL Server Column Stores |
2013 |
SIGMOD |
0.00013207641 |
| 1,254 |
Selectivity Estimation for Range Predicates using Lightweight Models |
2019 |
VLDB |
0.00013027411 |
| 1,638 |
Cardinality Estimation in DBMS: A Comprehensive Benchmark Evaluation |
2022 |
VLDB |
0.00011049779 |
| 1,981 |
Improved Selectivity Estimation by Combining Knowledge from Sampling and Synopses |
2018 |
VLDB |
9.8687545e-05 |
| 2,783 |
Flow-Loss: Learning Cardinality Estimates That Matter |
2021 |
VLDB |
8.1293383e-05 |
| 2,985 |
DSB: A Decision Support Benchmark for Workload-Driven and Traditional Database Systems |
2021 |
VLDB |
7.7795847e-05 |
| 3,408 |
Query Optimizers: Time to Rethink the Contract? |
2009 |
SIGMOD |
7.1288167e-05 |
| 3,952 |
Exact Cardinality Query Optimization for Optimizer Testing |
2009 |
VLDB |
6.5939652e-05 |
| 5,186 |
Query Optimization in Oracle 12c Database In-Memory |
2015 |
VLDB |
5.6400929e-05 |
| 5,194 |
Bitvector-aware Query Optimization for Decision Support Queries |
2020 |
SIGMOD |
5.6368209e-05 |
| 5,685 |
Exact Cardinality Query Optimization with Bounded Execution Cost |
2019 |
SIGMOD |
5.3717535e-05 |
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