Index types 2

  • Comments posted to this topic are about the item Index types 2


    Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server/Data Platform MVP (2006-2016)
    Visit my SQL Server blog: https://sqlserverfast.com/blog/
    SQL Server Execution Plan Reference: https://sqlserverfast.com/epr/

  • Great question Hugo, made me do some research 🙂

    Need an answer? No, you need a question
    My blog at https://sqlkover.com.
    MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP

  • Me too - quite a bit of hunting to get the right answers. Thanks for the interesting question.

  • Thanks, Koen! (EDIT: And Braindonor, who added a reply while I was typing)

    I submitted this question quite a long time ago - and I found that I had to spend time to research some of the options again. :w00t:

    BTW, maybe it's a bit early to say anything about the percentages, but at this point I am mainly surprised at:

    * 28% wrong answers on the "bitmap on computed" option - I expected this to be lower

    * 17% wrong answers on the "nonclustered on a view" option - here, I expected a higher failure rate

    The other percentages are (so far) about on par with my expectation.


    Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server/Data Platform MVP (2006-2016)
    Visit my SQL Server blog: https://sqlserverfast.com/blog/
    SQL Server Execution Plan Reference: https://sqlserverfast.com/epr/

  • Nice question Hugo, thanks.

    Got 3 of the 4 - knew bitmap indexes were available on other DB software, thought it might have been introduced with 2012.

    Thought 260 columns for columnstore indexes was a slightly random number so didn't go for that 🙂

  • Gazareth (8/30/2012)


    Nice question Hugo, thanks.

    Got 3 of the 4 - knew bitmap indexes were available on other DB software, thought it might have been introduced with 2012.

    Thought 260 columns for columnstore indexes was a slightly random number so didn't go for that 🙂

    Thanks, Gazareth!

    The 260 number is deliberately chosen to exceed 256, 28 or the number of values in a tinyint. This vlaue is a common boundary value in software. (For example, before SQL Server 2008, nonclustered indexes on a table were identified by a tinyint column with two reserved values, leaving room for 254 other values; the actual maximum number was 250 - I think they simply rounded down to a pretty number). So I picked the number 260 to distinguish those who believe in a maximum of 256 columns per columnstore index from those who believe in a larger or no maximum.


    Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server/Data Platform MVP (2006-2016)
    Visit my SQL Server blog: https://sqlserverfast.com/blog/
    SQL Server Execution Plan Reference: https://sqlserverfast.com/epr/

  • Thanks for the great question Hugo, got the brain matter working. Had to answer by process of elimination and learned something new on the way. Excellent.

    Cheers 😀

    _____________________________________________________________________
    [font="Comic Sans MS"]"The difficult tasks we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer"[/font]

  • DugyC (8/30/2012)


    Had to answer by process of elimination

    Thanks, Dugy!

    Frankly, I am a bit disappointed that the site moderators included the number of correct answers. I had included a note that there are multiple correct answers without specifying how many, to make it a true test of knowledge - but apprently, including the number of correct answers for questions with more than one answer is now standard practice, applied to all those questions. 🙁


    Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server/Data Platform MVP (2006-2016)
    Visit my SQL Server blog: https://sqlserverfast.com/blog/
    SQL Server Execution Plan Reference: https://sqlserverfast.com/epr/

  • Very good question! Thanks.


    Sujeet Singh

  • Thanks for the question Hugo. I should have stretched out before running that hard early in the morning. I think I strained something! 🙂 I certainly learned something.

    [font="Verdana"]Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you.[/font]
    Connect to me on LinkedIn

  • Hugo Kornelis (8/30/2012)


    Thanks, Koen! (EDIT: And Braindonor, who added a reply while I was typing)

    I submitted this question quite a long time ago - and I found that I had to spend time to research some of the options again. :w00t:

    BTW, maybe it's a bit early to say anything about the percentages, but at this point I am mainly surprised at:

    * 28% wrong answers on the "bitmap on computed" option - I expected this to be lower

    * 17% wrong answers on the "nonclustered on a view" option - here, I expected a higher failure rate

    The other percentages are (so far) about on par with my expectation.

    Good question, Hugo! I guess you could say it was so good, even you learned from it! 😛

    I'm most surprised that (at the time I answered) 49% thought "clustered with included columns" was a valid answer. Since the clustered index by design includes all columns at the leaf level, the only way I can see choosing that answer is if they were blindly guessing, or they reasoned that it was a trick choice and "with included columns" meant the implicit inclusion of columns rather than the explicit definition of included columns.

  • Thomas Abraham (8/30/2012)


    Thanks for the question Hugo. I should have stretched out before running that hard early in the morning. I think I strained something! 🙂 I certainly learned something.

    For starters + 1 😀

    Excellent question Hugo. Made me think a lot more this morning than I have in a while. I can say without a doubt that I have learned something.



    Everything is awesome!

  • I'd never heard of a bitmap index, but I knew which four answers were right and so did OK. If it hadn't specified there were four right answers I'd have struggled a bit with the bitmap answer, because it's often quite difficult to find something that says "X is unsupported in SQL Server"! 😛

  • Thanks for the question. Couldn't get it right even with researching it!

  • I read this

    Note that some index types may require additional attributes to be specified; this does not invalidate them for the context of this question. Only index types that include illegal attribute combinations or non existing attributes should be discarded. Also note that this question is not about the exact spelling of the various options

    and immediately realized that it was another question by Hugo Kornelis.

    So back to BOL, Google and multiple cups of coffee.

    But once again I learned something ... Mr Kornelis I thank you.

    If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

    Ron

    Please help us, help you -before posting a question please read[/url]
    Before posting a performance problem please read[/url]

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 24 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply