tting what is logically one large table into
     smaller physical pieces.  Partitioning can provide several benefits:
    </p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem"><p>
       Query performance can be improved dramatically in certain situations,
       particularly when most of the heavily accessed rows of the table are in a
       single partition or a small number of partitions.  Partitioning
       effectively substitutes for the upper tre