Which design will optimize query performance for a ridesharing company’s data in Amazon Redshift?

The design that optimizes query performance for a ridesharing company's data in Amazon Redshift involves considering how data is distributed across the nodes to minimize data movement during query execution. Using DISTSTYLE ALL for all tables might seem like it simplifies queries by replicating the entire table on every node, which can sometimes improve performance for small lookup tables.

However, it is important to note that while this approach may work for smaller tables, it can lead to inefficiencies with larger tables since they occupy more storage and can slow down updates and inserts due to the replication overhead. This means that if the tables involved are large, using DISTSTYLE ALL across the board would be counterproductive, as it can also increase the storage requirements and lead to skewed performance.

By contrast, a more nuanced approach such as using DISTSTYLE KEY for larger tables (like trips) to distribute the rows based on a specific key can improve performance by ensuring that data is co-located on the same nodes. This reduces the amount of data movement required during query operations. Using DISTSTYLE ALL for smaller lookup tables (like drivers) helps speed up joins on those tables, while DISTSTYLE EVEN for others can help distribute data evenly across all nodes but doesn't work well for query optimization involving joins.