Table partitioning on sql server by foreign key column

Question

All examples of table partitioning that I have found are quite simple but I need to partition many tables by one criteria.

For example I have tables: Contractors and Products where ContractorId in Products table is a foreign key.

I created function and schema for ContractorId. It works perfectly for Contractors table but when it comes to the Products table...

I have no idea how should I use it because when I try I always got the information: "The filegroup 'PRIMARY' specified for the clustered index 'PK_dbo.Products' was used for table 'dbo.Products' even though partition scheme 'scheme_Contractors' is specified for it". My Products table looks like:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Products](
[ProductId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[Name] [nvarchar](max) NULL,
[Amount] [int] NULL,
[Color] [nvarchar](max) NULL,
[Price] [decimal](18, 2) NULL,
[Guarantee] [nvarchar](max) NULL,
[GuaranteeType] [int] NULL,
[AdditionalFeatures] [nvarchar](max) NULL,
[Valid] [bit] NULL,
[ContractorId] [int] NOT NULL,
[ProducerId] [int] NOT NULL,
[ProductCategoryId] [int] NOT NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_dbo.Products] PRIMARY KEY ( [ProductId] ASC ) WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY] )
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Products]  WITH CHECK ADD  CONSTRAINT [FK_dbo.Products_dbo.Contractors_ContractorId] FOREIGN KEY([ContractorId]) 
REFERENCES [dbo].[Contractors] ([ContractorId])
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Products] CHECK CONSTRAINT [FK_dbo.Products_dbo.Contractors_ContractorId]
GO

Could anymone tell me please - is it possible to use my schema on ContractorId column and how? Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

In agreement with Dan Guzman, I'd like to point out there should be no [PRIMARY] specification in the table definition.

We use partitioning on large scale. It is very comfortable to partition all tables on the same partitioning scheme, because the SQL engine will use its multi-processor paralellisation capabilities to the full.

When a certain group of partitions is in one database file and another paration in another file you can even become flexible with disc-usage and backups.

So you first need a partition function to define the values of the partitioning scheme:

CREATE PARTITION FUNCTION [ContractorPartitionFunction](int) AS RANGE LEFT
FOR VALUES (contractor1,contractor2,...)

Then you need to create the partition scheme

CREATE PARTITION SCHEME [ContractorPartitionScheme] 
AS PARTITION [ContractorPartitionFunction] 
TO ([File_001],[File_002],...,[PRIMARY])

Then for all tables and indexes you now create you should remove ON [PRIMARY] from the definitions as the target filegroup, but instead you should use ON [ContractorPartitionScheme](ContractorId)

So you table definition should now read:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Products](
[ProductId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[Name] [nvarchar](max) NULL,
[Amount] [int] NULL,
[Color] [nvarchar](max) NULL,
[Price] [decimal](18, 2) NULL,
[Guarantee] [nvarchar](max) NULL,
[GuaranteeType] [int] NULL,
[AdditionalFeatures] [nvarchar](max) NULL,
[Valid] [bit] NULL,
[ContractorId] [int] NOT NULL,
[ProducerId] [int] NOT NULL,
[ProductCategoryId] [int] NOT NULL)
ON ContractorPartitionScheme(ContractorId)

CREATE UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED INDEX PK_dbo.Products ON Products
    (
    productId,
    ConstructorId
    ) WITH( STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON)
 ON ContractorPartitionScheme(ContractorId)