1. A database access method comprising: (1) obtaining a database query referring to data which is stored in each of a plurality of databases, the plurality of databases comprising one or more first databases and one or more second databases, wherein at least one attribute of the data is stored in columnar form in each second database but not in any first database; (2) determining if the query is to be executed on one or more of the first databases or one or more of the second databases; (3) providing the query to the one or more of the first databases or the one or more of the second databases as determined in operation (2).