The most important performance-tuning technique available is having the needed indexes created on the tables to ensure that the SQL Server database engine is able to get the data that it needs to as ...

SQL Server 2012 includes a lot of new and exciting features. One feature that has caught the imagination of many in the user community is the high-performance feature called Columnstore Indexes.

There's two answers to this question, the short answer and the long answer (which includes a follow-up question). The short answer is yes For the longer answer, let's start with the follow-up question ...

Missing indexes are one reason why an SQL query takes longer (much longer) to complete. Here's how to find out about them and fix the problem. In my previous article, Identifying your slowest SQL ...

For developers working with SQL Server, few performance tuning techniques are as essential--or as frequently misunderstood--as indexing. Done right, indexing can drastically improve application ...

The indexes on a the tables of a large database make a huge difference in its performance and utility. Without an index, locating a single record in a large table can take several seconds; with the ...

In an earlier tip I discussed how indexes can speed up processing. It's only fair that I also talk about when indexes don't help. First: Because indexes don't always help but do always increase the ...

Designing an appropriate set of indexes can be one of the more troubling aspects of developing efficient relational database applications. Perhaps, the most important thing you can do to assure ...

How do you quickly get a count of the number of rows in a table? This small utility will enable you to quickly get row counts for tables, heaps, indexes and partitions. It works with SQL Server 2005 ...