Distribution style controls how Redshift spreads a table’s rows across its compute nodes. Choose well and joins fly; choose poorly and data shuffles across the network, killing performance.
The distribution styles
KEY distributes rows by a column’s value — put the join column here so matching rows land on the same node. ALL copies the whole table to every node — good for small dimension tables. EVEN spreads rows round-robin — a default when there’s no clear join key. The goal is to minimize data movement during joins.
Test yourself
Two large Redshift tables are frequently joined on customer_id, but the join is slow due to heavy data movement between nodes. What’s the best fix?
- Set distribution style to EVEN on both
- Use a KEY distribution on customer_id for both tables
- Copy both tables with ALL distribution
- Add more backups
👉 Click to reveal the answer & explanation
Correct answer: B. KEY distribution on the join column co-locates matching rows on the same node, eliminating cross-node shuffle during the join. EVEN (A) causes shuffling; ALL (C) wastes space on large tables; backups (D) are irrelevant to query speed.
Related topics
Amazon Redshift · Redshift Spectrum · Data partitioning
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