An improved system and method for a distributed column chunk data store is provided. A distributed column chunk data store may be provided by multiple storage servers operably coupled to a network. A storage server may include a database engine for partitioning a data table into the column chunks for distributing across multiple storage servers, a storage shared memory for storing the column chunks during processing of semantic operations performed on the column chunks, and a storage services manager for striping column chunks of a partitioned data table across multiple storage servers. Any data table may be flexibly partitioned into column chunks using one or more columns as a key with various partitioning methods. There may also be a storage policy for specifying how to partition a data table for distributing column chunks across multiple servers and for specifying a level of redundancy for recovery from failure of storage servers.