Patent ID: 8386540

Claim:
A computer-implemented method, comprising: an administrative server receiving a request, made on behalf of a user of a service that provides relational database management services, for at least one of the relational database management services, wherein the request comprises data to be maintained by the service, a namespace identifier, and a partition key; in response to said receiving, the administrative server automatically creating a virtual relational database associated with the namespace identifier, wherein said creating comprises: dividing the data to be maintained by the service into two or more partitions, wherein the data is divided into the two or more partitions according to the partition key; storing each partition of the data in a respective relational database on one of a plurality of computing nodes; and storing a replica of each partition of the data in a respective relational database on a respective other one of the plurality of computing nodes; a client library receiving a query request directed to the virtual relational database, wherein the query request comprises information usable to generate a value of the partition key for the query; and in response to said receiving a query request, the client library: generating the partition key value for the query; and automatically routing the query request to at least one of the plurality of computing nodes dependent, at least in part, on the generated partition key value.