[dba-SQLServer] Does building cover indexes pay?

Michael Maddison michael at ddisolutions.com.au
Wed Jun 9 19:57:43 CDT 2010


Hi John,

I think you will only get opinions, if that.
You are going to have to test each scenario IMO.
Another option for testing is to enable/disable the covering indexes.
You probably need to update statistic after enabling if the data has
changed.
If the data hasn't changed then this 'should' be your best option.

Cheers

Michael M


I have processes which process huge tables (65 million records are
common) and update specific 
fields with the results of user defined functions.  For example I have a
function which builds a 
text "code" using four passed in values.  These four values come from
four fields of the record and 
the resulting code is placed back in another field of the same record.

ATM I build a "cover index" just before updating this field, perform the
update, then delete the 
index when done.

I am wondering whether you guys believe that the time to build the cover
index will be recovered by 
less time taken to perform this update.  IOW does it take sufficiently
less time to get data from an 
index vs a table scan that it is worth building the index?

-- 
John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com
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