What is table partitioning? - sql

In which case we should use table partitioning?

An example may help.
We collected data on a daily basis from a set of 124 grocery stores. Each days data was completely distinct from every other days. We partitioned the data on the date. This allowed us to have faster
searches because oracle can use partitioned indexes and quickly eliminate all of the non-relevant days.
This also allows for much easier backup operations because you can work in just the new partitions.
Also after 5 years of data we needed to get rid of an entire days data. You can "drop" or eliminate an entire partition at a time instead of deleting rows. So getting rid of old data was a snap.
So... They are good for large sets of data and very good for improving performance in some cases.

Partitioning enables tables and indexes or index-organized tables to be subdivided into smaller manageable pieces and these each small piece is called a "partition".
For more info: Partitioning in Oracle. What? Why? When? Who? Where? How?

When you want to break a table down into smaller tables (based on some logical breakdown) to improve performance. So now the user can refer to tables as one table name or to the individual partitions within.

Table partitioning consist in a technique adopted by some database management systems to deal with large databases. Instead of a single table storage location, they split your table in several files for quicker queries.
If you have a table which will store large ammounts of data (I mean REALLY large ammounts, like millions of records) table partitioning will be a good option.

i) It is the subdivision of a single table into multiple segments, called partitions, each of which holds a subset of values.
ii) You should use it when you have read the documentation, run some test cases, fully understood the advantages and disadvantages of it, and found that it will be of benefit.
You are not going to get a complete answer on a forum. Go and read the documentation and come back when you have a manageable problem.

Related

SQL - multiple tables vs one big table

I want to move multiple SQLite files to PostgreSQL.
Data contained in these files are monthly time-series (one month in a single *.sqlite file). Each has about 300,000 rows. There are more than 20 of these files.
My dilemma is how to organize the data in the new database:
a) Keep it in multiple tables
or
b) Merge it to one huge table with new column describing the time period (e.g. 04.2016, 05.2016, ...)
The database will be used only to pull data out of it (with the exception of adding data for new month).
My concern is that selecting data from multiple tables (join) would not perform very well and the queries can get quite complicated.
Which structure should I go for - one huge table or multiple smaller tables?
Think I would definitely go for one table - just make sure you use sensible indexes.
If you have the space and the resource 1 table, as other users have appropriately pointed out databases can handle millions of rows no problem.....Well depends on the data that is in them. The row size can make a big difference... Such as storing VARCHAR(MAX), VARBINARY(MAX) and several per row......
there is no doubt writing queries, ETL (extract transform load) is significantly easier on a single table! And maintenance of that is easier too from a archival perspective.
But if you never access the data and you need the performance in the primary table some sort of archive might make since.
There are some BI related reasons to maintain multiple tables but it doesn't sound like that is your issue here.
There is no perfect answer and will depend on your situation.
PostgreSQL is easily able to handle millions of rows in a table.
Go for option b) but..
with new column describing the time period (e.g. 04.2016, 05/2016, ...)
Please don't. Querying the different periods will become a pain, an unnecessary one. Just put the date in one column, put a index on the column and you can, probably, execute fast queries on it.
My concern is that selecting data from multiple tables (join) would not perform very well and the queries can get quite complicated.
Complicated for you to write or for the database to execute? An Example would be nice for us to get an image of your actual requirements.

Store Many Rows In Sql Server Issue?

I'm Working on My Program that Works With SQL Server.
for Store Data in Database Table, Which of the below approaches is correct?
Store Many Rows Just in One Table (10 Million Record)
Store Fewer Rows in Several Table (500000 Record) (exp: for each Year Create One Table)
It depends on how often you access data.If you are not using the old records, then you can archive those records. Splitting up of tables is not desirable as it may confuse you while fetching data.
I would say to store all the data in a single table, but implement a table partition on the older data. Partioning the data will increase query performance.
Here are some references:
http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/1914/sql-server-database-partitioning-myths-and-truths/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188730.aspx
http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2008/01/25/sql-server-2005-database-table-partitioning-tutorial-how-to-horizontal-partition-database-table/
Please note that this table partioning functionality is only available in Enterprise Edition.
Well, it depends!
What are you going to do with the data? If you are querying this data a lot of times it could be a better solution to split the data in (for example) year tables. That way you would have a better performance since you have to query smaller tables.
But on the other side. With a bigger table and with good query's you might not even see a performance issue. If you only need to store this data it would be better to just use 1 table.
BTW For loading this data into the database you could use BCP (bulkcopy), which is a fast way of inserting a lot of rows.

What is the most scalable design for this table structure

DataColumn, DataColumn, DateColumn
Every so often we put data into the table via date.
So everything seems great at first, but then I thought: What happens when there are a million or billion rows in the table? Should I be breaking up the tables by date? This way the query performance will never degrade? How do people deal with this sort of thing?
You can use partitioned tables starting with SQL 2K5: Partitioned Tables
This way you gain the benefits of keeping the logical design pure while being able to move old data into a different file group.
You should not break your tables because of data. Instead, you should worry about your indexes, normalization and so on.
Update
A little deeper explanation. Let's suppose you have a table with a million records. If you have different dates on [DateColumn], your greatest ally will be the indexes that work with the [DateColumn]. Then you make sure your queries always filter by at least [DateColumn].
This way, you will be fine.
This easily qualifies as premature optimization, which is tough to achieve in db design IMHO, because optimization is/should be closer to the surface in data modeling.
But all you need to do is create an index on the DateColumn field. An index is actually a much better performance solution than any kind of table splitting/breaking up and keeps your design and therefore all of you programming much simpler. (And you can decide to use partitioning w/o affecting your design in the future if it helps.)
Sounds like you could use a history table. If you are mostly going to query the current date's data, then migrate the old data to the history table and your main table will not grow so much.
If I understand you question correctly, you have a table with some data and a date. Your question is -- will I see improved performance if I make a new table say, every year. This way the queries will never have to look at more than one years worth of data.
This is wrong. Instead what you should do is set the date field as an index. The server will be able to give you the performance gain you need if it is an index.
If you don't do this your program's logic will get crazy and ultimately slow down your system.
Keep it simple.
(NB - There are some advanced partitioning features you can make use of, but these can be layered in later if needed -- it is unlikely you will need these features but the simple design should be able to migrate to them if needed.)
When tables and indexes become very
large, partitioning can help by
partitioning the data into smaller,
more manageable sections.
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 allows you
to partition your tables based on
specific data usage patterns using
defined ranges or lists. SQL Server
2005 also offers numerous options for
the long-term management of
partitioned tables and indexes by the
addition of features designed around
the new table and index structure.
Furthermore, if a large table exists
on a system with multiple CPUs,
partitioning the table can lead to
better performance through parallel
operations.
You might need considering the
following too: In SQL Server 2005,
related tables (such as Order and
OrderDetails tables) that are
partitioned to the same partitioning
key and the same partitioning function
are said to be aligned. When the
optimizer detects that two partitioned
and aligned tables are joined, SQL
Server 2005 can join the data that
resides on the same partitions first
and then combine the results. This
allows SQL Server 2005 to more
effectively use multiple-CPU
computers.
Read about Partitioned Tables and Indexes in SQL Server 2005

Sql optimization Techniques

I want to know optimization techniques for databases that has nearly 80,000 records,
list of possibilities for optimizing
i am using for my mobile project in android platform
i use sqlite,i takes lot of time to retreive the data
Thanks
Well, with only 80,000 records and assuming your database is well designed and normalized, just adding indexes on the columns that you frequently use in your WHERE or ORDER BY clauses should be sufficient.
There are other more sophisticated techniques you can use (such as denormalizing certain tables, partitioning, etc.) but those normally only start to come into play when you have millions of records to deal with.
ETA:
I see you updated the question to mention that this is on a mobile platform - that could change things a bit.
Assuming you can't pare down the data set at all, one thing you might be able to do would be to try to partition the database a bit. The idea here is to take your one large table and split it into several smaller identical tables that each hold a subset of the data.
Which of those tables a given row would go into would depend on how you choose to partition it. For example, if you had a "customer_id" field that could range from 0 to 10,000 you might put customers 0 - 2500 in table1, 2,500 - 5,000 in table2, etc. splitting the one large table into 4 smaller ones. You would then have logic in your app that would figure out which table (or tables) to query to retrieve a given record.
You would want to partition your data in such a way that you generally only need to query one of the partitions at a time. Exactly how you would partition the data would depend on what fields you have and how you are using them, but the general idea is the same.
Create indexes
Delete indexes
Normalize
DeNormalize
80k rows isn't many rows these days. Clever index(es) with queries that utlise these indexes will serve you right.
Learn how to display query execution maps, then learn to understand what they mean, then optimize your indices, tables, queries accordingly.
Such a wide topic, which does depend on what you want to optimise for. But the basics:
indexes. A good indexing strategy is important, indexing the right columns that are frequently queried on/ordered by is important. However, the more indexes you add, the slower your INSERTs and UPDATEs will be so there is a trade-off.
maintenance. Keep indexes defragged and statistics up to date
optimised queries. Identify queries that are slow (using profiler/built-in information available from SQL 2005 onwards) and see if they could be written more efficiently (e.g. avoid CURSORs, used set-based operations where possible
parameterisation/SPs. Use parameterised SQL to query the db instead of adhoc SQL with hardcoded search values. This will allow better execution plan caching and reuse.
start with a normalised database schema, and then de-normalise if appropriate to improve performance
80,000 records is not much so I'll stop there (large dbs, with millions of data rows, I'd have suggested partitioning the data)
You really have to be more specific with respect to what you want to do. What is your mix of operations? What is your table structure? The generic advice is to use indices as appropriate but you aren't going to get much help with such a generic question.
Also, 80,000 records is nothing. It is a moderate-sized table and should not make any decent database break a sweat.
First of all, indexes are really a necessity if you want a well-performing database.
Besides that, though, the techniques depend on what you need to optimize for: Size, speed, memory, etc?
One thing that is worth knowing is that using a function in the where statement on the indexed field will cause the index not to be used.
Example (Oracle):
SELECT indexed_text FROM your_table WHERE upper(indexed_text) = 'UPPERCASE TEXT';

To aggregate or not to aggregate, that is the database schema design question

If you're doing min/max/avg queries, do you prefer to use aggregation tables or simply query across a range of rows in the raw table?
This is obviously a very open-ended question and there's no one right answer, so I'm just looking for people's general suggestions. Assume that the raw data table consists of a timestamp, a numeric foreign key (say a user id), and a decimal value (say a purchase amount). Furthermore, assume that there are millions of rows in the table.
I have done both and am torn. On one hand aggregation tables have given me significantly faster queries but at the cost of a proliferation of additional tables. Displaying the current values for an aggregated range either requires dropping entirely back to the raw data table or combining more fine grained aggregations. I have found that keeping track in the application code of which aggregation table to query when is more work that you'd think and that schema changes will be required, as the original aggregation ranges will invariably not be enough ("But I wanted to see our sales over the last 3 pay periods!").
On the other hand, querying from the raw data can be punishingly slow but lets me be very flexible about the data ranges. When the range bounds change, I simply change a query rather than having to rebuild aggregation tables. Likewise the application code requires fewer updates. I suspect that if I was smarter about my indexing (i.e. always having good covering indexes), I would be able to reduce the penalty of selecting from the raw data but that's by no means a panacea.
Is there anyway I can have the best of both worlds?
We had that same problem and ran into the same issues you ran into. We ended up switching our reporting to Analysis Services. There is a learning curve with MDX and Analysis services itself, but it's been great. Some of the benefits we have found are:
You have a lot of flexibility for
querying any way you want. Before we
had to build specific aggregates,
but now one cube answers all our
questions.
Storage in a cube is far smaller
than the detailed data.
Building and processing the cubes
takes less time and produces less
load on the database servers than
the aggregates did.
Some CONS:
There is a learning curve around
building cubes and learning MDX.
We had to create some tools to
automate working with the cubes.
UPDATE:
Since you're using MySql, you could take a look at Pentaho Mondrian, which is an open source OLAP solution that supports MySql. I've never used it though, so I don't know if it will work for you or not. Would be interested in knowing if it works for you though.
It helps to pick a good primary key (ie [user_id, used_date, used_time]). For a constant user_id it's then very fast to do a range-condition on used_date.
But as the table grows, you can reduce your table-size by aggregating to a table like [user_id, used_date]. For every range where the time-of-day doesn't matter you can then use that table. An other way to reduce the table-size is archiving old data that you don't (allow) querying anymore.
I always lean towards raw data. Once aggregated, you can't go back.
Nothing to do with deletion - unless there's the simplest of aggregated data sets, you can't accurately revert/transpose the data back to raw.
Ideally, I'd use a materialized view (assuming that the data can fit within the constraints) because it is effectively a table. But MySQL doesn't support them, so the next consideration would be a view with the computed columns, or a trigger to update an actual table.
Long history question, for currently, I found this useful, answered by microstrategy engineer
BTW, another already have solutions like (cube.dev/dremio) you don't have to do by yourself.