# Partition

One independently processable chunk of a dataset. Partition size is the main lever on how well a workload parallelizes.

Source: https://university.eugo.io/glossary/partition

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Too small and scheduling overhead dominates; too large and the final tasks leave most workers idle. Aim for units measured in seconds.

## Related terms

- [Batching](https://university.eugo.io/glossary/batching) — Grouping several small units of work into one task so that scheduling overhead does not dominate the time spent doing useful work.
- [Long tail](https://university.eugo.io/glossary/long-tail) — The situation where most tasks finish quickly but one or two run much longer, so the whole run waits on them while workers sit idle.
- [Scheduling overhead](https://university.eugo.io/glossary/scheduling-overhead) — The fixed cost of dispatching a task and returning its result. When it approaches the cost of the task body, adding parallelism stops helping.