Microsoft® SQL Server 2012 Unleashed

To Expand or Not to Expand

The expansion of a view to its base tables is a key consideration when evaluating the use of indexes on views. The SQL Server Query Optimizer can expand a view to its base tables or decide to utilize indexes that are found on the view itself. The selection of an index on a view is directly related to the edition of SQL Server 2012 you are running and the expansion options selected for a related query.

As mentioned earlier, the Enterprise and Developer Editions are the only editions that allow the Query Optimizer to use an indexed view to solve queries that structurally match the view, even if they don’t refer to the view by name. For other editions of SQL Server 2012, the view must be referenced in the query, and the ...