Intro , Colocation and distribution key, data skew, process skew, filter-table and filter-join.
It is important to keep in mind that while distribution and co-location are keys to high(er) performance on the machine, the true hero here is the SPU architecture and how it applies to the problem at hand. We have seen cases where applying a distribution alone has provided dramatic effects, such as 30x and 40x boost because of the nature of the data. This is not typical however, since the co-located reads will usually provide only a percentage boost rather than an X-level boost. This is why we often suggest that people sort of clear-their-head of jumping directly into a distribution discussion and instead put together a workable data model with a random distribution. Once loaded, profile the various key candidates to get a feel for which ones work the best and which ones do not. We have seen some users struggle with the data only because they prematurely selected a distribution key that - unbeknownst to them - had a very high skew and made the queries run too slow. This protracted their workstreams and made all kinds of things take longer than they should have. So at inception, go simple, and then work your way up to the ideal. Taken from this Source