So far in this course, you have learned how to use both partitioning and clusters to optimize the physical retrieval of data in your Oracle database from disk. Index-organized tables are a feature introduced with Oracle8, and these database structures can to improve performance when used with appropriate types of data.
In this module, you will not only learn about index-organized tables, but you learn to:

1. Explain how index-organized tables differ from normal tables
2. Know when to use an index-organized table
3. Create an index-organized table
4. Create secondary indexes on an index-organized table
5. Handle large rows in an index-organized table
6. Delete and modify index-organized tables
7. Reorganize an index-organized table

Like clusters, index-organized tables are not appropriate for all types of data, although in suitable situations, they too can provide a significant performance increase.
In the next lesson, you will learn how index-organized tables differ from normal tables.