Abstract: Described are methods for data compression of a column store database. A method may include providing a plurality of columns sorted from a first position to a last position in increasing order of individual cardinality, permuting columns of the plurality of columns one-by-one to a second position of the plurality of columns, except for the column at the first position, to determine a first permutation of the plurality of columns having the greatest run-length encoding (RLE) compression, and permuting columns of the first permutation one-by-one to a third position, except for columns at the second position and the first position, to determine a second permutation having the greatest RLE compression. The method may further include continuing permuting the plurality of columns to determine a final sort order, and compressing columns of the final sort order using RLE compression.