US Patent 10061831 Reference partitioning for database objects

In one general aspect, a computer-implemented system for reference partitioning database objects by a reference field includes at least one hardware processor, at least one database environment, the database environment supporting triggers and partitioning, at least one application program, and memory storing a reference field metadata framework. The reference field metadata framework identifies classes in a hierarchy of database objects, identifies at least one class as a root of the hierarchy, identifies, for each non-root class, a reference inheritance function for the class, and identifies, for each parent class-child class pair in the hierarchy, a relation-join query, the relation-join query being a join between tables in the database environment onto which the parent class and child class are persisted. The memory also stores triggers that use the framework to maintain values for the reference field for non-root database objects.