Although partitioning tables and indexes has always been a design tactic chosen to improve performance and manageability in larger databases, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 has new features that simplify the design. This whitepaper describes the logical progression from manually partitioning data by creating your own tables to the preliminary features, which enabled partitioning through views in SQL Server 7.0 and SQL Server 2000, to the true partitioned table features available in SQL Server 2005. In SQL Server 2005, the new table-based partitioning features significantly simplify design and administration of partitioned tables while continuing to improve performance.