[spathak]

@Tharkun: You are right that not every query is immediately parallelizable. Distinct count's are another example. In some cases data can be re-partitioned so we can calculate exact values and push down computation in parallel. This may provide better performance than a single large table, so there are still benefits to it. Ultimately though there will be tradeoffs to moving to an entirely distributed environment, but depending on the use-case the value may offset those.