Have you looked at adding XML indexes to the columns?
I've found that parsing out XML is a major performance hog, but with XML indexes it becomes fast and painless.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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