Introduction to Partitioning

001、Partitioning  addresses key issues in supporting very large tables and indexes by decomposing them into smaller and more manageable pieces called partitions , which are entirely transparent to an application.
    分区技术对应用完全透明。

002、SQL queries and Data Manipulation Language (DML) statements do not need to be modified to access partitioned tables. 
    查询和DML语句访问分区表的时候不需要做修改。

003、However, after partitions are defined, Data Definition Language (DDL) statements can access and manipulate individual partitions rather than entire tables or indexes. This is how partitioning can simplify the manageability of large database objects.
    DDL语句可以直接访问和操作单个分区而不是整个表或索引。这就是分区技术简化大数据库对象管理的实现。

004、Each partition of a table or index must have the same logical attributes, such as column names, data types, and constraints, but each partition can have separate physical attributes, such as compression enabled or disabled, physical storage settings, and tablespaces.
    每个表或索引的分区必须拥有相同的逻辑属性，例如列名，数据类型，约束，不过每个分区可以拥有各自的物理属性，例如是否压缩，物理存储设置，表空间等。

005、Partitioning is useful for many different types of applications, particularly applications that manage large volumes of data. OLTP systems often benefit from improvements in manageability and availability, while data warehousing systems benefit from performance and manageability.
    分区技术对需要管理大量数据的应用很有用。OLTP系统从管理性和可用性获益，数据仓库则从性能和管理性获益。

006、分区的好处：
    It enables data management operations such as data loads, index creation and rebuilding, and backup and recovery at the partition level, rather than on the entire table. This results in significantly reduced times for these operations.
    使得数据管理操作可以在分区水平实现，而不用在整个表水平实现。例如数据加载，索引创建和重建，备份和恢复。这意味着可以显著减少这些操作的时间。

    It improves query performance. Often the results of a query can be achieved by accessing a subset of partitions, rather than the entire table. For some queries, this technique (called partition pruning) can provide order-of-magnitude gains in performance.
    分区改善了查询性能。很多情况下一个完成一个查询只要查询几个分区即可，而不是整个表。对于某些查询在性能上可以达到数量级的飞跃。

    It significantly reduces the impact of scheduled downtime for maintenance operations.

    Partition independence for partition maintenance operations lets you perform concurrent maintenance operations on different partitions of the same table or index. You can also run concurrent SELECT and DML operations against partitions that are unaffected by maintenance operations.

    显著减少维护操作的预定停机时间。对于分区维护操作来说，分区独立性使得你得以在表或索引的不同分区执行并行维护操作。你同样可以对不受维护操作影响的分区执行并行查询和DML操作。

    It increases the availability of mission-critical databases if critical tables and indexes are divided into partitions to reduce the maintenance windows, recovery times, and impact of failures.
    分区增加了运行关键任务的数据库的可用性。如果将关键表和索引分区，可以缩短维护窗口，减少恢复时间，以及减少数据库故障带来的影响。

    Parallel execution provides specific advantages to optimize resource utilization, and minimize execution time. Parallel execution against partitioned objects is key for scalability in a clustered environment. Parallel execution is supported for queries and for DML and DDL.
    并行执行为资源利用提供了明显的优势，同时最小化执行时间。在一个集群环境中针对分区对象的并行执行是可扩展性的关键。并行执行支持查询、DML和DDL。

007、Partitioning enables faster data access within an Oracle database. Whether a database has 10 GB or 10 TB of data, partitioning can improve data access by orders of magnitude. Partitioning can be implemented without requiring any modifications to your applications. For example, you could convert a nonpartitioned table to a partitioned table without needing to modify any of the  SELECT  statements or DML statements that access that table. You do not need to rewrite your application code to take advantage of partitioning.
    在Oracle数据库中分区使得数据访问更加快速。无论一个数据库拥有10GB还是10TB的数据，分区技术都能以数量级的形式来提高数据访问速度。实现分区无需对应用做任何修改。例如，你可以将一张非分区表转换成分区表，但你访问这张表的select语句和DML语句不用做任何修改。不用重写你的代码你就能获得分区带来的优势。