Patent ID: 8380702

Claim:
A method, comprising: modifying and accessing a table indexed by an index, wherein said table comprises table partitions; wherein said index comprises index partitions, wherein each of said index partitions indexes a respective table partition of said table partitions; wherein modifying and accessing said table comprises: performing a set of modifications to a certain table partition of said table partitions without synchronously updating the respective certain index partition of said certain table, wherein after completing said set of modifications, said certain index partition and said certain table partition are left in an unsynchronized state; and while said certain index partition and said certain table partition are left in said unsynchronized state, receiving queries that require access to said table; using said index to compute said queries without rewriting said queries to be flashback queries; performing a synchronization operation, wherein performing a synchronization operation comprises conforming data in said certain index partition to corresponding data in said certain table partition; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.