18. The system of claim 14 , wherein the computer readable program code is further configured to: collect a plurality of preferred access paths for a plurality of query statements in an application workload; and present the plurality of preferred access paths as a query execution plan enhancement recommendation.
14. A system, comprising: a processor; and a computer readable memory having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code configured to: select a sample of literal sets from an execution history of a query statement; determine a plurality of access paths by applying each literal set in the sample to the query statement, comprising, for each given literal set in the sample: generate a new query statement by substituting variables in the query statement with the given literal set; explain the new query statement to obtain a given critical access path; associate the given critical access path with the given literal set; increment a hit count associated with the given critical access path; and increment a total sampling count associated with the query statement; for each given access path of the plurality of access paths, determine a total execution cost by applying each literal set in the sample to the given access path; and select a preferred access path from the plurality of access paths based on the total execution costs for each given access path.