What is a partitioned table?

What is a partitioned table?

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A partitioned table is a table that is broken down into smaller and more manageable pieces called partitions. Usually, a table is partitioned if it contains a very large amount of data. A table is partitioned on the basis of values in a column or set of columns known as partition key. Each partition of a partitioned table is allocated a segment and can be managed individually. All partitions of a partitioned table share the same logical attributes. For example, all partitions share the same column and constraint definitions. However, each partition can have different physical attributes. For example, each partition can be stored in a separate tablespace that can have different storage parameters.

All partitions of a partitioned table can be stored in the same tablespace. However, storing partitions in separate tablespaces on separate disks reduces the possibility of data loss and enhances the performance of queries and other operations on the table. Moreover, storing partitions in separate tablespaces allows independent back up and recovery of each partition.

Several operations on a partitioned table can be performed concurrently by assigning different parallel execution servers to different partitions of the table.

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