How would you answer an interview scenario involving database partitioning?

For an interview scenario involving database partitioning, I would first clarify the business goal, scale, constraints, and the failure or quality attribute the interviewer wants to explore. Partitioning splits data into subsets so storage and workload can be distributed across nodes or boundaries. In this scenario, a multi-tenant system has a few very large tenants and many small ones. Explain partition-key options. For production, select keys from access patterns, plan redistribution, understand cross-partition queries, and monitor skew. I would then explain the main alternatives and tradeoffs, identify likely failure modes, and describe how I would validate the solution through testing, observability, security controls, and recovery or rollback planning.