[NelsonMinar]

I remember joining Google in 2001 and being struck they were using the term "sharding" for the ads databases (MySQL) instead of "partitions". I understood it at the time to be referring to Ultima Online.

Raph's memory dates to 1996, the blog post he references seems to be from 1999. I imagine the idea of database partitioning goes back at least to the 80s, anyone know what earlier terms were used? Other than "partition", of course.