Patent ID: 8005840

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for retrieving records of a database comprising: receiving a user query request for data from a database, wherein the data is comprised of one or more fields; determining based on the user query request at least one of the one or more fields in the database to utilize to partition the data; determining at least one first partitioning value within the at least one field; counting a first number of records defined by the first partitioning value to determine a size of a first partition; determining that the determined size of the first partition is not within a predetermined range of size; determining at least one second partitioning value within the at least one field; counting a second number of records defined by the second partitioning value to determine a size of a second partition; determining that the determined size of the second partition is within the predetermined range of size; and utilizing the at least one second partitioning value in conjunction with the query request to return a data set.