US Patent 11442917 Incremental reclustering based on local maxima of partition overlap

Disclosed herein are systems and methods for incremental reclustering of database tables based on local maxima of partition overlap. In an embodiment, a database platform makes a determination, based on one or more incremental-reclustering criteria, to incrementally recluster a database table, which has a clustering key and which is stored across a plurality of partitions. In response to making the determination, the database platform selects a subset of the partitions, and at least incrementally reclusters the selected subset. The selecting of the subset includes identifying a local maximum of a quantity of overlapping partitions in the plurality of partitions with respect to a domain of the clustering key of the table, where the overlapping partitions overlap with respect to the clustering key.