Re: Challenge: Partitioning is a wrong idea

<mikharakiri_nospaum_at_yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1112914442.722412.78720_at_g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> fitzjarr..._at_cox.net wrote:

> Finally, the truth surfaces. So, unlike the other, really useful
> features, you can't really defend partitioning ("it's not for
> everybody","your mileage may vary","no silver bullet").

It seems to me that this is rather turning the argument on its head. Earlier on in this thread you mentioned two features which you did think were useful, materialized views and bitmap indexes.Both of them are useful, but neither of them are always useful. The contributors to this thread other than you have suggested that having partitioning available was helpful in a number of situations. I think that I have seen the following possibilities suggested

1. You regularly delete significant amounts of data based on what would make an excellent partition key.
2. You regularly load data into a warehouse.
3. You wish to reduce the backup resource requirements by making old partitions read-only.

In other words just like materialized views or indexes, sometimes the tool of partitioning can be a help, other times it may not be.

Incidentally in your last response to the deletion example you suggested that

a) the DBA could choose when to do the delete
b) users were isolated from the transaction (presumably off the system)
c) Users don't care about the old data.

That rather adds to the scenario posited, what happens if one or all of those further assumptions are incorrect. Received on Sat Apr 09 2005 - 00:40:47 CDT