SQL Server 2017 Administration Inside Out, First Edition

Chapter 10Understanding and designing indexes

Designing clustered indexes

Designing nonclustered indexes

Designing Columnstore indexes

Understanding indexing in memory-optimized tables

Understanding other types of indexes

Understanding index statistics

In this chapter, we dive into indexing of all kinds—not just clustered and nonclustered indexes—including practical development techniques for designing indexes. We spend time on memory-optimized tables throughout, including hash indexes for extreme writes, and Columnstore indexes for extreme reads. We review “missing” indexes and index usage, and special types of indexes for niche uses. Finally, we explain statistics, how they are created and updated, and important performance-related options ...