Sams Teach Yourself Transact-SQL in 21 Days, Second Edition

Day 9. Indexes and Performance

So far, you have learned how to use T-SQL to access and manipulate data in your SQL Server database. In Day 8, "Defining Data," you were introduced to the Data Definition Language, or DDL, which is used for creating and modifying the definitions and structures of the tables used in a database. What we haven't looked at yet, is how to make your database perform better. There are many database programmers who have spent years working with SQL without any real understanding of how the SQL Server works or what decisions it makes for them.

However, in these days of ever growing databases, you are required to write faster, more efficient application systems. To do this, you need to know more about how the server processes ...