We discussed two main approaches to partitioning: Key range partitioning, where keys are sorted, and a partition owns all the keys from some minimum up to some maximum. Sorting has the advantage that efficient range queries are possible, but there is a risk of hot spots if the application often accesses keys that are close together in the sorted order. In this approach, partitions are typically rebalanced dynamically by splitting the range into two subranges when a partition gets too big. Hash partitioning, where a hash function is applied to each key, and a partition owns a range of hashes.
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