Tables are partitioned in VoltDB by hashing primary key values. Performance is optimized by choosing
partitioning keys that match the way the data is most commonly accessed.
To further optimize performance, VoltDB allows selected tables to be replicated on all partitions of the
cluster. This strategy minimizes cross-partition join operations. For example, a retail merchandising
database that uses product codes as the primary key may have one table that simply correlates the
product code with the product's category and full name. Since this table is relatively small and does
not change frequently (unlike inventory and orders) it can be replicated to all partitions. This way
stored procedures can retrieve and return user-friendly product information when searching by
product code without impacting the performance of order and inventory updates and searches.
