Expert Performance Indexing in SQL Server

About the Author

Jason Strate is a database architect and administrator with more than 15 years of experience. He has been a recipient of Microsoft's "Most Valuable Professional" designation for SQL Server since July 2009. His experience includes design and implementation of both OLTP and OLAP solutions, as well as assessment and implementation of SQL Server environments for best practices, performance, and high availability solutions. Jason is a SQL Server MCITP and participated in the development of Microsoft Certification exams for SQL Server 2008.





Jason is actively involved with his local PASS chapter (SQL Server User Group) and serves as its director of program development. Jason worked with the board to organize the PASSMN SQL Summit 2009 for the local community. Jason enjoys helping others in the SQL Server community and does this by presenting at technical conferences and user group meetings. Most recently, Jason has presented at the SSWUG Virtual Conferences, TechFuse, numerous SQL Saturdays, and at PASSMN user group meetings.





Jason is a contributing author for the Microsoft whitepaper Empowering Enterprise Solutions with SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition. Jason is an active blogger with a focus on SQL Server and related technologies.

pstrongGrant Fritchey/strong works as a development database administrator for FM Global, an industry-leading engineering and insurance company. In his previous time as a database administrator and developer, he has worked at three failed dot-coms, a major consulting company, and a global bank. He has developed large-scale applications in languages such as VB, C#, and Java and has lived with SQL Server from the hoary days of 6.0, right through to 2008. His nickname at work is "The Scary DBA." He even has an official name plate, and he displays it proudly. /p pGrant volunteers for the Professional Association of SQL Server Users (PASS) and has written and published articles on various topics relating to SQL Server at Simple-Talk, SQL Server Central, SQL Server Performance, the PASS web site, SQL Standard, and the SQL Server Worldwide Users Group. He is the author of the book emDissecting SQL Server Execution Plans/em. He is one of the founding officers of the Southern New England SQL Server Users Group (SNESSUG)./p pOutside work, Grant kayaks, learns and teaches self-defense, brews his own beer, chops wood to heat his house, raises his kids, and helps lead a pack of Cub Scouts./p


Product Description

This book is a deep dive into perhaps the single-most important facet of good performance: indexes, and how to best use them. The book begins in the shallow waters with explanations of the types of indexes and how they are stored in databases. Moving deeper into the topic, and further into the book, you will look at the statistics that are accumulated both by indexes and on indexes. You’ll better understand what indexes are doing in the database and what can be done to mitigate and improve their effect on performance. The final destination is a guided tour through a number of real life scenarios showing approaches you can take to investigate, mitigate, and improve the performance of your database. Defines the types of indexes and their implementation options Provides use cases and common patterns in applying indexing Describes and explain the index metadata and statistics Provides a framework of strategies and approaches for indexing databases



What you’ll learn
Properly index in-memory OLTP tables Recognize and remove unnecessary indexes Review statistics to understand indexing choices made by the optimizer Properly apply strategies such as covering indexes, included columns, index intersections, and more Write queries to make good use of the indexes already in place Design effective indexes for full-text, spatial, and XML data types Manage the big picture: Encompassing all indexes in a database, and all database instances on a server

Who this book is for

Expert Performanc