Data Partitioning Strategies

Interview Question

How would you design data partitioning for a system that must handle billions of records with fast queries?

Key Points to Cover

Evaluation Rubric

Chooses effective partition keys30% weight

Explains partitioning strategies30% weight

Handles partition rebalancing20% weight

Optimizes query performance20% weight

Hints

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

⚠️Choosing a partition key with low cardinality, leading to uneven data distribution.
⚠️Ignoring query patterns and partitioning based solely on data volume, resulting in slow queries.
⚠️Over-partitioning, which can increase management overhead and query planning complexity without significant performance gains.
⚠️Under-partitioning, leading to massive partitions that are slow to scan and manage.
⚠️Neglecting the impact of secondary indexes on partition performance and maintenance, especially with global indexes on heavily partitioned tables.

Potential Follow-up Questions