Patent ID: 6907422

Claim:
A computer implemented method for accessing data records from a large set of records stored in a database, comprising: Defining a plurality of boundaries to logically partition the large set of records into a plurality of buckets in accordance with a predefined sort order, said sort order based on data stored in at least two columns of a database table in which at least a base portion of each data record is stored; in response to a request to retrieve a data record; determining a bucket in which the data record is contained; retrieving a subset of the large set of records from the database corresponding to data records contained in the bucket; and searching the plurality of boundaries for a sequentially-adjacent pair of boundaries as defined by the predetermined sort order that bound the data record in the request; generating a query including a search clause defining a data set that is bounded by the sequentially-adjacent pair of boundaries; and executing the query against the database.