Oracle Partitioning can improve the performance, manageability, and availability for applications, the company asserts. Part of the Oracle Database, Oracle Partitioning is the subject of a white paper that discusses the latest partitioning techniques, enhanced scalability, and extended manageability capabilities now available in the latest Oracle Database 11g Release 2.

Basically, partitioning allows a table, index, or index-organized table to be subdivided into smaller pieces. The paper explains each piece of the database object is called a partition. Each partition has its own name, and may optionally have its own storage characteristics. From the perspective of a database administrator, a partitioned object has multiple pieces that can be managed either collectively or individually. This gives the administrator considerable flexibility in managing partitioned objects. However, from the perspective of the application, a partitioned table is identical to a non-partitioned table; no modifications are necessary when accessing a partitioned table using SQL DML commands.

Oracle Database 11g differentiates between three types of partitioned indexes:

• Local Indexes: A local index is an index on a partitioned table that is coupled with the underlying partitioned table, 'inheriting' the partitioning strategy from the table.
• Global Partitioned Indexes: A global partitioned index is an index on a partitioned or non-partitioned table that is partitioned using a different partitioning-key or partitioning strategy than the table.
• Global Non-Partitioned Indexes: A global non-partitioned index is essentially identical to an index on a non-partitioned table.

In the paper, readers will be presented with basic partitioning strategies in the Oracle Database 1g Release 2. These are range partitioning, list partitioning, hash partitioning, and composite partitioning. Its partitioning extensions are covered as well and include interval partitioning, REF partitioning, virtual column based partitioning. The 11-page PDF discusses these aspects and also goes over the benefits that partitioning can bring to an organization, namely manageability, performance, availability.

More Information

Partitioning with Oracle Database 11g Release 2" - Oracle white paper

Oracle Database Home Page

Oracle Partitioning Home Page

Free eBook: Guide to Oracle 11g and Database Migration [...read more...]

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