A modern distributed database should do more than just split data amongst a number of servers; it should correctly manage partitions (or shards). Moreso, it should automatically detect failures, fix itself without any operator intervention, and completely abstract this management from the end user. This post is the first in a series on how CockroachDB handles its data and discusses the mechanisms it uses to rebalance and repair. These systems make managing a CockroachDB cluster significantly easier than managing other databases.