Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Getting Started with the New Column Store Index of SQL Server 2012

Column Store Index is a new feature in SQL Server 2012 that improves performance of data warehouse queries several folds. Unlike regular indexes or heaps, which store data in B-Tree structure (in row-wise fashion), the column store index stores data in columnar fashion and uses compression aggressively to reduce the disk I/O needed to serve the query request along with the newly introduced batch mode processing.

In my last article I talked in detail about the new Column Store Index, how it differs from regular indexes, and why and how it improves the performance of the same query by several folds if column store index is used, where it can be used and what its limitations are.

In this article I am going to take this discussion to another level and show how you can create column store index, how you can use index query hint to include or exclude a column store index, how the performance differs when using column store index vs. row store index and more, click here for more information.

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