Restrictions

Some restrictions apply to table partitions.

Range-partitions and composite partitioning schemes, like hash-range partitions, require the separately licensed VLDB Management option.
Only base tables can be partitioned; global temporary tables or declared local temporary tables cannot. All rows of a table partition are physically colocated.
Although range partitions or subpartitions can reside in separate dbspaces, individual dbspaces are recommended for BLOB or CLOB columns or CHAR, VARCHAR or VARBINARY columns greater than 255 bytes only.

Partition Keys

Partition keys cannot contain:

LOB (BLOB or CLOB) columns
BINARY, or VARBINARY columns
CHAR or VARCHAR columns whose length is over 255 bytes
BIT columns
FLOAT/DOUBLE/REAL columns

Partition key columns can contain NULL and DEFAULT values. All NULL values are mapped to the same partition.

You can have up to 8 partitioning key columns for hash partitions and only one key column for range partitions or subpartitions.

You can define up to 1024 range partitions or subpartitions.

DML Operations

You can perform DML operations including LOAD, INSERT, DELETE, TRUNCATE, and TRUNCATE TABLE PARTITION. UPDATE of partition key columns is not supported and results in an error. You can perform the UPDATE of all other columns of a partitioned table.

SAP Sybase IQ generates an exception for DML operations on a READ-ONLY table or READ-ONLY table partition. INSERT and LOAD statements or INSERT by updatable cursor generate an error and operations roll back, if the given row does not fit into the specified range of partitions.

DDL Operations

Some restrictions apply to DROP, RENAME, PARTITION, UNPARTITION, MERGE, SPLIT, and MOVE partitions:

Restrictions on DDL Operations on Partitions
Operation	Restriction
Drop	You cannot drop a column from a partition key or range subpartition key. You cannot drop the last partition of a partitioned table.
Partition an unpartitioned table	An existing table cannot be made hash partitioned.
Merge two adjacent partitions	Both partitions must reside in the same dbspace. No data movement is required.
Split a partition	All rows must belong to the first of the two partitions after splitting. Split partition must be on same dbspace as original so that no data movement is required. You can split a range subpartition only if no data must be moved. All existing rows of the subpartition to be split must remain in the first subpartition after the split.
Move a partition to a new dbspace.	All rows of the partition are moved to data pages in the new dbspace. CREATE permission in the new dbspace is required.