You can create different partition types at different points in the pipeline.
The following figure shows a mapping where you can create partition types to increase session performance:
This mapping reads data about items and calculates average wholesale costs and prices. The mapping must read item information from three flat files of various sizes, and then filter out discontinued items. It sorts the active items by description, calculates the average prices and wholesale costs, and writes the results to a relational database in which the target tables are partitioned by key range.
You can delete the default partition point at the Aggregator transformation because hash auto-keys partitioning at the Sorter transformation sends all rows that contain items with the same description to the same partition. Therefore, the Aggregator transformation receives data for all items with the same description in one partition and can calculate the average costs and prices for this item correctly.
When you use this mapping in a session, you can increase session performance by defining different partition types at the following partition points in the pipeline:
Source qualifier.
To read data from the three flat files concurrently, you must specify three partitions at the source qualifier. Accept the default partition type, pass-through.
Filter transformation.
Since the source files vary in size, each partition processes a different amount of data. Set a partition point at the Filter transformation, and choose round-robin partitioning to balance the load going into the Filter transformation.
Sorter transformation.
To eliminate overlapping groups in the Sorter and Aggregator transformations, use hash auto-keys partitioning at the Sorter transformation. This causes the Integration Service to group all items with the same description into the same partition before the Sorter and Aggregator transformations process the rows. You can delete the default partition point at the Aggregator transformation.
Target.
Since the target tables are partitioned by key range, specify key range partitioning at the target to optimize writing data to the target.