ColumnCast

We try to tackle query optimization by fluid denormalization of our schema. ColumnCast analyzes query workloads and database statistics to determine candidate attributes that can be duplicated to improve query processing. This process - which we refer to as grafting can help in multiple ways: elimination of a join, predicate pushdown and even aggregation pushdown. Preliminary results show a speed up upto 1.75x with only a 8% increase in storage overhead.