Improving Database Performance

Was this helpful?

(8)

(0)

Utilising indexes on a large database table can improve performance considerably.

Take the following example:

ExampleTable with 10,000 rows of three columns: ID, OrderID, Name

By default, the primary key (in this case ID) is indexed and any searches by ID will be fast. For example:

Select * From ExampleTable Where ID = 555

However, if you search by OrderID, SQL Server will have to search all 10,000 rows to find the data. For example:

Select * From ExampleTable Where OrderID = 999

To improve performance an index should be added to the OrderID column. This can be done using SQL Management Studio or using the CREATE INDEX query.

Keywords: slow query, table performance