Oracle cluster supply an optional way of storing table data. In a cluster a group of tables share the same data blocks. The tables are grouped together because they share identical columns and are often used together. For example, the employee and department table use the depth no column. When you cluster the employee and department tables Oracle Database physically stores all rows for each department from both the employee and department tables in the same data blocks.
Because clusters store relevant rows of dissimilar tables together in the one data blocks, correctly used clusters offer two primary benefits:
■ Disk I/O is condensed and access time improves for joins of clustered tables.
■ The cluster key is the column, or collection of columns, that the clustered tables have
in same. You identify the columns of the cluster key when creating the cluster.
You next specify the same columns when creating every table added to the cluster. Each cluster key value is saved only single time each in the cluster and the cluster index, no concern how many rows of different tables hold the value.
Because clusters store relevant rows of dissimilar tables together in the one data blocks, correctly used clusters offer two primary benefits:
■ Disk I/O is condensed and access time improves for joins of clustered tables.
■ The cluster key is the column, or collection of columns, that the clustered tables have
in same. You identify the columns of the cluster key when creating the cluster.
You next specify the same columns when creating every table added to the cluster. Each cluster key value is saved only single time each in the cluster and the cluster index, no concern how many rows of different tables hold the value.
