Oracle Partitioning Explained
In an Oracle database, PARTITION is a feature used to divide table or index data, allowing large tables or indexes to be split into smaller parts, with each part referred to as a partition. Partitioning can enhance query performance, streamline data maintenance and management, and accommodate various requirements of applications.
Here are some uses of PARTITION:
- Improving performance: by splitting tables or indexes into multiple partitions, the amount of data in a single table or index is reduced, leading to a decrease in the amount of data scanned during queries, and ultimately improving query performance.
- Convenient maintenance: Using partitions makes it easier to manage data, such as performing operations like backup, restore, or index rebuilds on just a specific partition, rather than the entire table or index.
- Data retention policy: Historical data can be archived separately from current data based on business requirements, in order to meet the needs of data retention policy, such as periodically archiving historical data.
- Increase parallelism: In concurrent situations, the database locks the entire table, but with partitioning, data from different partitions can be processed in parallel, enhancing the database’s concurrency handling capability.
- Space management: It allows for better control of the disk space occupied by different partitions, helping to optimize storage space utilization.
In general, partitions in Oracle offer a more flexible and efficient way to manage and operate large tables or index data, helping database administrators and developers better handle massive amounts of data, improve system performance, and maintainability.
