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I'm trying to learn something about distributed databases and I stumbled upon the concepts of fragmentation and partitioning. It seems to me as if both do the same thing and produce similar results (deviding a relation horizontally/vertically/both).

So what's the difference between fragmentation and partitioning?

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What RDBMS are you referring to ? –  Kin Jun 29 '13 at 20:05
    
No specific one. Im just asking in general. –  nozzleman Jun 29 '13 at 22:21
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I think you mean sharding, not fragmentation? –  Jon Seigel Jul 10 '13 at 3:18
    
no no, i meant partitioning, i've actually never heard of sharding... –  nozzleman Jul 10 '13 at 14:57
    
Then please clarify what you mean by fragmentation, because the two concepts you're asking about are completely different, at least using the standard definitions of them. –  Jon Seigel Jul 10 '13 at 16:27
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closed as unclear what you're asking by Jon Seigel, StanleyJohns, Max Vernon, RolandoMySQLDBA, Michael - sqlbot Sep 6 '13 at 16:26

Please clarify your specific problem or add additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it’s hard to tell exactly what you're asking. See the How to Ask page for help clarifying this question.If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.

2 Answers

up vote 0 down vote

The terminology depends on the RDBMS. In SQL server: Partitioning is a DB feature that can be used to improve performance and/or manageability of your DB.

Fragmentation happens when your rows in the data pages are non-contiguous due to insert/delete operations. Your DB performance will decrease if you have high fragmentation of your data.

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up vote -1 down vote

look here. Remember partitioning and fragmentation on your local hard disk.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skalierbarkeit#Skalierung_hinsichtlich_Datenbankeintr.C3.A4ge_-_Denormalisierung

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Thanks for your answer. Anyway, i think thats not comparable.. –  nozzleman Jun 29 '13 at 17:52
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