What are Covering Indexes and Covered Queries in SQL Server

Question

Can you explain the concepts of  and relationship between  Covering Indexes and Covered Queries in Microsoft s SQL Server

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a covering index is the one which gives every required column and in which SQL server don t have hop back to the clustered index to find any column  This is achieved using non-clustered index and using INCLUDE  option to cover columns  Non-key columns can be included only in non-clustered indexes  Columns can   t be defined in both the key column and the INCLUDE list  Column names can   t be repeated in the INCLUDE list  Non-key columns can be dropped from a table only after the non-key index is dropped first  Please see details here

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When I simply recalled that a Clustered Index consists of a key-ordered non-heap list of ALL the columns in the defined table  the lights went on for me  The word  cluster   then  refers to the fact that there is a  cluster  of all the columns  like a cluster of fish in that  hot spot   If there is no index covering the column containing the sought value  the right side of the equation   then the execution plan uses a Clustered Index Seek into the Clustered Index s representation of the requested column because it does not find the requested column in any other  covering  index  The missing will cause a Clustered Index Seek operator in the proposed Execution Plan  where the sought value is within a column inside the ordered list represented by the Clustered Index    So  one solution is to create a non-clustered index that has the column containing the requested value inside the index  In this way  there is no need to reference the Clustered Index  and the Optimizer should be able to hook that index in the Execution Plan with no hint  If  however  there is a Predicate naming the single column clustering key and an argument to a scalar value on the clustering key  the Clustered Index Seek Operator will still be used  even if there is already a covering index on a second column in the table without an index

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Page 178  High Performance MySQL  3rd Edition  An index that contains  or  quot covers quot   all the data needed to satisfy a query is called a covering index  When you issue a query that is covered by an index  an indexed-covered query   you ll see  quot Using Index quot  in the Extra column in EXPLAIN

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If all the columns requested in the select list of query  are available in the index  then the query engine doesn t have to lookup the table again which can significantly increase the performance of the query  Since all the requested columns are available with in the index  the index is covering the query  So  the query is called a covering query and the index is a covering index   A clustered index can always cover a query  if the columns in the select list are from the same table   The following links can be helpful  if you are new to index concepts    Excellent video on advantages and disadvantages of index and covering queries and indexes  Indexes in SQL Server

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A Covering Index is a Non-Clustered index  Both Clustered and Non-Clustered indexes use B-Tree data structure to improve the search for data  the difference is that in the leaves of a Clustered Index a whole record  i e  row  is stored physically right there   but this is not the case for Non-Clustered indexes  The following examples illustrate it     Example  I have a table with three columns  ID  Fname and Lname     However  for a Non-Clustered index  there are two possibilities  either the table already has a Clustered index or it doesn t     As the two diagrams show  such Non-Clustered indexes do not provide a good performance  because they cannot find the favorite value  i e  Lname  solely from the B-Tree  Instead they have to do an extra Look Up step  either Key or RID look up  to find the value of Lname  And  this is where covered index comes to the screen  Here  the Non-Clustered index on ID coveres the value of Lname right next to it in the leaves of the B-Tree and there is no need for any type of look up anymore

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A covering query is on where all the predicates can be matched using the indices on the underlying tables    This is the first step towards improving the performance of the sql under consideration

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Here s an article in devx com that says      Creating a non-clustered index that contains all the columns used in a SQL query  a technique called index covering   I can only suppose that a covered query is a query that has an index that covers all the columns in its returned recordset  One caveat - the index and query would have to be built as to allow the SQL server to actually infer from the query that the index is useful   For example  a join of a table on itself might not benefit from such an index  depending on the intelligence of the SQL query execution planner    PersonID ParentID Name 1        NULL     Abe 2        NULL     Bob 3        1        Carl 4        2        Dave   Let s assume there s an index on PersonID ParentID Name - this would be a covering index for a query like   SELECT PersonID  ParentID  Name FROM MyTable   But a query like this   SELECT PersonID  Name FROM MyTable LEFT JOIN MyTable T ON T PersonID MyTable ParentID   Probably wouldn t benifit so much  even though all of the columns are in the index  Why  Because you re not really telling it that you want to use the triple index of PersonID ParentID Name    Instead  you re building a condition based on two columns - PersonID and ParentID  which leaves out Name  and then you re asking for all the records  with the columns PersonID  Name  Actually  depending on implementation  the index might help the latter part  But for the first part  you re better off having other indexes

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A covered query is a query where all the columns in the query s result set are pulled from non-clustered indexes   A query is made into a covered query by the judicious arrangement of indexes   A covered query is often more performant than a non-covered query in part because non-clustered indexes have more rows per page than clustered indexes or heap indexes  so fewer pages need to be brought into memory in order to satisfy the query  They have more rows per page because only part of the table row is part of the index row   A covering index is an index which is used in a covered query  There is no such thing as an index which  in and of itself  is a covering index  An index may be a covering index with respect to query A  while at the same time not being a covering index with respect to query B

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A covering index is one which can satisfy all requested columns in a query without performing a further lookup into the clustered index   There is no such thing as a covering query   Have a look at this Simple-Talk article  Using Covering Indexes to Improve Query Performance

[sql] What are Covering Indexes and Covered Queries in SQL Server?

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