Can we apply partitioning and distributions simultaneously to a big data table?

Hi @Anonymous ,

Thank you for posting query in Microsoft Q&A Platform.

Distribution is something concept of distributing your table data to different nodes(small DBs). It something like hardware concept. Where data is getting distributed to different machines(nodes). In Data warehouses you have MPP architecture that allows us to distribute table data. Please check below link to understand MPP architecture.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/synapse-analytics/sql/overview-architecture

Below video will also helps for Azure Synapse Architecture.
Azure Synapse SQL Architecture

This video further helps to understand about distributions. Click here for documentation of distributions in Azure Synapse.

Now, coming to partition, its like divide your data in to smaller groups of data. You can think it as of storage/software concept. Partitioning is supported on all dedicated SQL pool table types; including clustered columnstore, clustered index, and heap. Partitioning is also supported on all distribution types, including both hash or round robin distributed.
Click here to know about partitions in Azure Synapse.

Below SO post also has great discussion about Distribution and partition. Kindly have a look.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51677471/what-is-a-difference-between-table-distribution-and-table-partition-in-sql

Hope this helps. Please let us know if any further queries.

----------

Please consider hitting Accept Answer. Accepted answers help community as well.