Cluster and Partition Keys: An Interactive Exploration
Overview
This interactive demo demonstrates how partition keys and cluster keys optimize data storage and retrieval in distributed databases. Using a user activity log scenario, you’ll see how partition keys divide data into manageable chunks across servers while cluster keys determine the physical order within each partition. Perfect for understanding big data concepts and learning database design strategies for scalability and performance.
Tips
- Start by examining the original unorganized data, then compare it to the clustered view to see how physical ordering improves range queries
- Partition by User ID when you frequently query all activity for specific users; partition by Action when you need to analyze specific types of events
- Notice how combining partitioning and clustering gives you both data distribution and ordered access within each partition
- In production systems, choose partition keys based on your most common query patterns to avoid cross-partition queries
- Edit values and add rows in the demo to see real-time updates across all views, reinforcing how data reorganizes automatically
- Remember that partition keys affect data distribution across servers, so choose high-cardinality columns to avoid hotspots
- Use timestamp as a cluster key for time-series data to enable efficient range queries like “last 7 days of activity”