A cursor that is generated from an original database statement includes a master plan that is shared among the various participants involved in the parallel execution of the operations specified in the original statement. For participants that cannot share the same cursor, such as slave processes on remote servers, a remote cursor is generated. Signatures are generated for both the master plan and the remote plans, and compared to ensure that the remote plans are equivalent to the master plans. Various parameters and statistics are provided to remote servers to increase the likelihood that the remote plans will be equivalent to the master plan.