Expert Performance Indexing for SQL Server 2012 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. All of this will help you progress towards properly achieving your database performance goals.

What you'll learn from Expert Performance Indexing for SQL Server 2012 will help you understand what indexes are doing in the database and what can be done to mitigate and improve their effects on performance. The final destination is a guided tour through a number of real-world scenarios and approaches that can be taken to investigate, mitigate, and improve the performance of your database.

Defines indexes and provides an understanding of their role
Uncovers and explains the statistics that are kept in indexes
Teaches strategies and approaches for indexing databases

What you’ll learn

Fully understand the index types at your disposal
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 Performance Indexing for SQL Server 2012 is intended for database administrators and developers who are ready to boost the performance of their environments without the need to go in blindly building indexes.
Table of Contents

Index Fundamentals
Index Storage Fundamentals
Index Statistics
XML, Spatial and FULLTEXT
Index Myths and Best Practices
Index Maintenance
Indexing Tools
Index Strategies
Query Strategies
Index Analysis