Partitioning分区是Oracle一种重要的处理大量数据的特性，从Oracle 8开始引入range partition范围分区，到现在11g中出现的Interval Partition、REF Partitions、Partition Advisor等new feature，分区技术在一步步走向成熟。
下表列出了从Oracle 8到11g的各历史版本中出现的分区特性：
| Core functionality | Performance | Manageability | |
| Oracle8 | Range partitioning | “Static” partition pruning | Basic maintenance operations: add, drop, exchange |
| Global range indexes | |||
| Oracle8i | Hash and composite range-hash partitioning | Partition-wise joins | Merge operation |
| “Dynamic” pruning | |||
| Oracle9i | List partitioning | Global index maintenance | |
| Oracle9i R2 | Composite range-list partitioning | Fast partition split | |
| Oracle10g | Global hash indexes | Local Index maintenance | |
| Oracle10g R2 | 1M partitions per table | “Multi-dimensional” pruning | Fast drop table |
| Oracle Database 11g | More composite choices | Interval Partitioning | |
| REF Partitioning | Partition Advisor | ||
| Virtual Column Partitioning |
复合分区(Composite Partitioning)最早在版本8i中被引入(Range-Hash)，是一种二维的模式分区技术； 在11g中进一步扩展了Composite Partitioning，11g 支持RANGE-RANGE、 RANGE-LIST、LIST-LIST、LIST-HASH等几种模式。 其中RANGE-RANGE是我们久违了的，很多初学分区概念的同学都会惊讶于11g以前居然没有RANGE-RANGE分区可用。
| Range | List | Hash | |
| Range | 11g | 9i | 8i |
| List | 11g | 11g | 11g |
Comment