11g New Features - Interval Partitioning

Interval Partitioning: This new feature in table partition fully automates the partition creation for range. i.e new partitions will be created when they are needed. By defining the interval criteria, the database knows when to create new partitions for new or modified data. Interval partitioning is an extension of range partitioning which instructs the database to automatically create partitions of a specified interval when data inserted into the table exceeds all of the existing range partitions. You must specify at least one range partition. The range partitioning key value determines the high value of the range partitions, which is called the transition point, and the database creates interval partitions for data beyond that transition point. The lower boundary of every interval partition is the non-inclusive upper boundary of the previous range or interval partition. For example, if you create an interval partitioned table with monthly intervals and the transition point at January 1, 2007, then the lower boundary for the January 2007 interval is January 1, 2007. The lower boundary for the July 2007 interval is July 1, 2007, regardless of whether the June 2007 partition was already created. Cheers Vignesh