• Edit: changed these comments:

    Most important is to change the WHERE to not use functions on the table column.

    You should also very strongly analyze clustering the table by INSERT_DETECT_TS (add Incident_Id to the clus key if you want), if it's not already.

    SELECT DISTINCT Incident_id, policy_name

    FROM Reporting_DailyDlpDetail

    WHERE INSERT_DETECT_TS >= '20150602' AND INSERT_DETECT_TS < '20150610'

    If you only need the total, you can add an outer query:

    SELECT COUNT(*) AS Distinct_Total

    FROM (

    SELECT DISTINCT Incident_id, policy_name

    FROM Reporting_DailyDlpDetail

    WHERE INSERT_DETECT_TS >= '20150602' AND INSERT_DETECT_TS < '20150610'

    ) AS derived

    SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) A socialist is someone who will give you the shirt off *someone else's* back.