Partition (database)
A partition is a division of a logical database or its constituting elements into distinct independent parts. Database partitioning is normally done for manageability, performance or availability reasons.
A popular and favourable application of partitioning is in a distributed database management system. Each partition may be spread over multiple nodes, and users at the node can perform local transactions on the partition. This increases performance for sites that have regular transactions involving certain views of data, whilst maintaining availability and security.
Read more about Partition (database): Partitioning Criteria, Partitioning Methods