  With the SAP HANA database, SAP offers a high-performance in-memory
hybrid-store database. Hybrid-store databases---that is, databases supporting
row- and column-oriented data management---are getting more and more prominent.
While the columnar management offers high-performance capabilities for
analyzing large quantities of data, the row-oriented store can handle
transactional point queries as well as inserts and updates more efficiently. To
effectively take advantage of both stores at the same time the novel question
whether to store the given data row- or column-oriented arises. We tackle this
problem with a storage advisor tool that supports database administrators at
this decision. Our proposed storage advisor recommends the optimal store based
on data and query characteristics; its core is a cost model to estimate and
compare query execution times for the different stores. Besides a per-table
decision, our tool also considers to horizontally and vertically partition the
data and manage the partitions on different stores. We evaluated the storage
advisor for the use in the SAP HANA database; we show the recommendation
quality as well as the benefit of having the data in the optimal store with
respect to increased query performance.
