I can't understand why my query is doing a sequential scan.
select columns
from table
where (column_1 ilike '%whatever%' or column_2 ilike '%whatever%')
I have an index on both column_1 and column_2.
The cardinality on both columns is very high.
My table is roughly 25 million rows.
What do you think I might be doing wrong? No matter what I do, it always does a sequential scan.
Edit #1:
My index looks like this:
Create index xxx on table (column_1, column_2);
Edit #2:
Changing my sql query to
select columns
from table
where (column_1 ilike 'whatever%' and column_2 ilike 'whatever%')
still made my query use a sequential scan. I got the same result when I just used like instead of ilike. But this query:
select columns
from table
where (column_1 = 'whatever' and column_2 = whatever)
made my query use an index scan and my query went much faster :)
Two Reasons:
Your query does a OR condition in which index can't be used.
You are doing a ilike on "%xyz%". This can't use any help of sorted(i.e. indexed) data.
--
Edit: See if you can have like on "xyz%". Then index can be used if you do a separate condition on both columns (and separate index on both)
Edit2: By the query, the thing you are trying to do looks like Full Text Search. For that you would need search indexing techniques (Read Elasticsearch, Sphinx, Solr)
Related
I have a table named DocumentItem with Id column was clustered index (primary key).
Please see these two query strings:
Query 1 (not use order by):
select *
from DocumentItem
where (HistoryCreateDate >= '2019-09-04 05:00:00' AND HistoryCreateDate <= '2019-12-04 05:00:00') and ActNodeState>140100
The result took: 00:00:09 with 168.357 rows.
Query 2 (used order by):
select *
from DocumentItem
where (HistoryCreateDate >= '2019-09-04 05:00:00' AND HistoryCreateDate <= '2019-12-04 05:00:00') and ActNodeState>140100 order by Id
The result took: 00:02:41 with 168.357 rows.
Here is the actual execution plan:
Why it took so long in the 2nd query?
SQL Server has decided that your index IX_HistoryCreateDate (not sure of the full name) is sufficiently selective that it will use it to find the rows that it needs. However, that index isn't sorted on the ID column. It does include the ID column already (whether you specified it or not) because it's the clustering key.
I'd suggest recreating your IX_HistoryCreateDate index like this:
CREATE INDEX IX_HistoryCreateDate ON DocumentItem
( HistoryCreateDate, ID)
INCLUDE (ActNodeState);
And I think you'll be fine. It's still not going to be great and it will have to do a large number of lookups, because your query uses SELECT *. Do you really need all columns returned? If so, and you do this all the time, you might consider reclustering the table in the order that you need.
Hi everyone I have a couple of queries for some reports in which each query is pulling Data from 35+ tables. Each Table has almost 100K records. All the Queries are Union ALL for Example
;With CTE
AS
(
Select col1, col2, col3 FROM Table1 WHERE Some_Condition
UNION ALL
Select col1, col2, col3 FROM Table2 WHERE Some_Condition
UNION ALL
Select col1, col2, col3 FROM Table3 WHERE Some_Condition
UNION ALL
Select col1, col2, col3 FROM Table4 WHERE Some_Condition
.
.
. And so on
)
SELECT col1, col2, col3 FROM CTE
ORDER BY col3 DESC
So far I have only tested this query on Dev Server and I can see It takes its time to get the results. All of these 35+ tables are not related with each other and this is the only way I can think of to get all the Desired Data in result set.
Is there a better way to do this kind of query ??
If this is the only way to go for this kind of query how can I
improve the performance for this Query by making any changes if
possible??
My Opinion
I Dont mind having a few dirty-reads in this report. I was thinking of using Query hints with nolock or Transaction Isolation Level set to READ UNCOMMITED.
Will any of this help ???
Edit
Every Table has 5-10 Bit columns and a Corresponding Date column to each Bit Column and my condition for each SELECT Statement is something like
WHERE BitColumn = 1 AND DateColumn IS NULL
Suggestion By Peers
Filtered Index
CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_Table_Column
ON TableName(BitColumn)
WHERE BitColum = 1
Filtered Index with Included Column
CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX fIX_IX_Table_Column
ON TableName(BitColumn)
INCLUDE (DateColumn)
WHERE DateColumn IS NULL
Is this the best way to go ? or any suggestions please ???
There are lots of things that can be done to make it faster.
If I assume you need to do these UNIONs, then you can speed up the query by :
Caching the results, for example,
Can you create an indexed view from the whole statement ? Or there are lots of different WHERE conditions, so there'd be lots of indexed views ? But know that this will slow down modifications (INSERT, etc.) for those tables
Can you cache it in a different way ? Maybe in the mid layer ?
Can it be recalculated in advance ?
Make a covering index. Leading columns are columns form WHERE and then all other columns from the query as included columns
Note that a covering index can be also filtered but filtered index isn't used if the WHERE in the query will have variables / parameters and they can potentially have the value that is not covered by the filtered index (i.e., the row isn't covered)
ORDER BY will cause sort
If you can cache it, then it's fine - no sort will be needed (it's cached sorted)
Otherwise, sort is CPU bound (and I/O bound if not in memory). To speed it up, do you use fast collation ? The performance difference between the slowest and fastest collation can be even 3 times. For example, SQL_EBCDIC280_CP1_CS_AS, SQL_Latin1_General_CP1251_CS_AS, SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS are one of the fastest collations. However, it's hard to make recommendations if I don't know the collation characteristics you need
Network
'network packet size' for the connection that does the SELECT should be the maximum value possible - 32,767 bytes if the result set (number of rows) will be big. This can be set on the client side, e.g., if you use .NET and SqlConnection in the connection string. This will minimize CPU overhead when sending data from the SQL Server and will improve performance on both side - client and server. This can boost performance even by tens of percents if the network was the bottleneck
Use shared memory endpoint if the client is on the SQL Server; otherwise TCP/IP for the best performance
General things
As you said, using isolation level read uncommmitted will improve the performance
...
Probably you can't do changes beyond rewriting the query, etc. but just in case, adding more memory in case it isn't sufficient now, or using SQL Server 2014 in memory features :-), ... would surely help.
There are way too many things that could be tuned but it's hard to point out the key ones if the question isn't very specific.
Hope this helps a bit
well you haven't give any statistics or sample run time of any execution so it is not possible to guess what is slow and is it really slow. how much data is in the result set? it might be just retrieving 100K rows as in result is just taking its time. if the result set of 10000 rows is taking 5 minute, yes definitely something can be looked at. so if you have sample query, number of rows in result and how much time it took for couple of execution with different where conditions, post that. it will help us to compare results.
BTW, do not use CTE just use regular inner and outer query select. make sure the Temp DB is configured properly. LDF and MDF is not default configured for 10% increase. by certain try and error you will come to know how much log and temp DB is increased for verity of range queries and based on that you should set the initial and increment size of the MDF and LDF of temp DB. for the Covered filter index the include column should be col1, col2 and co3 not column Date unless Date is also in select list.
how frequently the data in original 35 tables get updated? if max once per day or if they all get updates almost same time then Indexed-Views can be a possible solution. but if original tables getting updates more than once a day or they gets updates anytime and no where they are in same line then do no think about Indexed-View.
if disk space is not an issue as a last resort try and test performance using trigger on each 35 table. create new table to hold final results as you are expecting from this select query. create insert/update/delete trigger on each 35 table where you check the conditions inside trigger and if yes then only copy the same insert/update/delete to new table. yes you will need a column in new table that identifies which data coming from which table. because Date is Null-Able column you do not get full advantage of Index on that Column as "mostly you are looking for WHERE Date is NULL".
in the new Table only query you always do is where Date is NULL then do not even bother to create that column just create BIT columns and other col1, col2, col3 etc... if you give real example of your query and explain the actual tables, other details can be workout later.
The query hints or the Isolation Level are only going to help you in case of any blocking occurs.
If you dont mind dirty reads and there are locks during the execution it could be a good idea.
The key question is how many data fits the Where clausule you need to use (WHERE BitColumn = 1 AND DateColumn IS NULL)
If the subset filtered by that is small compared with the total number of rows, then use an index on both columns, BitColum and DateColumn, including the columns in the select clausule to avoid "Page Lookup" operations in your query plan.
CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_[Choose an IndexName]
ON TableName(BitColumn, DateColumn)
INCLUDE (col1, col2, col3)
Of course the space needed for that covered-filtered index depends on the datatype of the fields involved and the number of rows that satisfy WHERE BitColumn = 1 AND DateColumn IS NULL.
After that I recomend to use a View instead of a CTE:
CREATE VIEW [Choose a ViewName]
AS
(
Select col1, col2, col3 FROM Table1 WHERE Some_Condition
UNION ALL
Select col1, col2, col3 FROM Table2 WHERE Some_Condition
.
.
.
)
By doing that, your query plan should look like 35 small index scans, but if most of the data satisfies the where clausule of your index, the performance is going to be similar to scan the 35 source tables and the solution won't worth it.
But You say "Every Table has 5-10 Bit columns and a Corresponding Date column.." then I think is not going to be a good idea to make an index per bit colum.
If you need to filter by using diferent BitColums and Different DateColums, use a compute column in your table:
ALTER TABLE Table1 ADD ComputedFilterFlag AS
CAST(
CASE WHEN BitColum1 = 1 AND DateColumn1 IS NULL THEN 1 ELSE 0 END +
CASE WHEN BitColum2 = 1 AND DateColumn2 IS NULL THEN 2 ELSE 0 END +
CASE WHEN BitColum3 = 1 AND DateColumn3 IS NULL THEN 4 ELSE 0 END
AS tinyint)
I recomend you use the value 2^(X-1) for conditionX(BitColumnX=1 and DateColumnX IS NOT NULL). It is going to allow you to filter by using any combination of that criteria.
By using value 3 you can locate all rows that accomplish: Bit1, Date1 and Bit2, Date2 condition. Any condition combination has its corresponding ComputedFilterFlag value because the ComputedFilterFlag acts as a bitmap of conditions.
If you heve less than 8 diferents filters you should use tinyint to save space in the index and decrease the IO operations needed.
Then use an Index over ComputedFilterFlag colum:
CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_[Choose an IndexName]
ON TableName(ComputedFilterFlag)
INCLUDE (col1, col2, col3)
And create the view:
CREATE VIEW [Choose a ViewName]
AS
(
Select col1, col2, col3 FROM Table1 WHERE ComputedFilterFlag IN [Choose the Target Filter Value set]--(1, 3, 5, 7)
UNION ALL
Select col1, col2, col3 FROM Table2 WHERE ComputedFilterFlag IN [Choose the Target Filter Value set]--(1, 3, 5, 7)
.
.
.
)
By doing that, your index coveres all the conditions and your query plan should look like 35 small index seeks.
But this is a tricky solution, may be a refactoring in your table schema could produce simpler and faster results.
You'll never get real time results from a union all query over many tables but I can tell you how I got a little speed out of a similar situation. Hopefully this will help you out.
You can actually run all of them at once with a little bit coding and ingenuity.
You create a global temporary table instead of a common table expression and don't put any keys on the global temporary table it will just slow things down. Then you start all the individual queries which insert into the global temporary table. I've done this a hundred or so times manually and it's faster than a union query because you get a query running on each cpu core. The tricky part is the mechanism to determine when the individual queries have finished your on your own for that piece hence I do these manually.
Which one of the following queries is faster (LIKE vs CONTAINS)?
SELECT * FROM table WHERE Column LIKE '%test%';
or
SELECT * FROM table WHERE Contains(Column, "test");
The second (assuming you means CONTAINS, and actually put it in a valid query) should be faster, because it can use some form of index (in this case, a full text index). Of course, this form of query is only available if the column is in a full text index. If it isn't, then only the first form is available.
The first query, using LIKE, will be unable to use an index, since it starts with a wildcard, so will always require a full table scan.
The CONTAINS query should be:
SELECT * FROM table WHERE CONTAINS(Column, 'test');
Having run both queries on a SQL Server 2012 instance, I can confirm the first query was fastest in my case.
The query with the LIKE keyword showed a clustered index scan.
The CONTAINS also had a clustered index scan with additional operators for the full text match and a merge join.
I think that CONTAINS took longer and used Merge because you had a dash("-") in your query adventure-works.com.
The dash is a break word so the CONTAINS searched the full-text index for adventure and than it searched for works.com and merged the results.
Also try changing from this:
SELECT * FROM table WHERE Contains(Column, "test") > 0;
To this:
SELECT * FROM table WHERE Contains(Column, '"*test*"') > 0;
The former will find records with values like "this is a test" and "a test-case is the plan".
The latter will also find records with values like "i am testing this" and "this is the greatest".
I didn't understand actually what is going on with "Contains" keyword. I set a full text index on a column. I run some queries on the table.
Like returns 450.518 rows but contains not and like's result is correct
SELECT COL FROM TBL WHERE COL LIKE '%41%' --450.518 rows
SELECT COL FROM TBL WHERE CONTAINS(COL,N'41') ---40 rows
SELECT COL FROM TBL WHERE CONTAINS(COL,N'"*41*"') -- 220.364 rows
I have a table which has a bunch of columns but the two relevant ones are:
Due_Amount MONEY
Bounced_Due_Amount MONEY
I have a SQL query like the following
SELECT * FROM table WHERE (Due_Amount > 0 OR Bounced_Due_Amount > 0)
Would the best index to put on this table for SQL Server 2008 be an index which includes both columns in the index, or should I put an separate index on each column?
An Index can't be used on an OR like that. try this:
SELECT * FROM table WHERE Due_Amount > 0
UNION ALL
SELECT * FROM table Bounced_Due_Amount > 0
--use "UNION" if Due_Amount and Bounced_Due_Amount could both >0 at any one time
have an index on Due_Amount and another on Bounced_Due_Amount.
It might be better to redesign your table. Without knowing your business logic or table, I'm going to guess that you could have a "Bounced" Y/N or 1/0 char/bit column and just a "Due_Amount" column. Add an index on that "Due_Amount" and the query would just be:
SELECT * FROM table WHERE Due_Amount > 0
you could still differentiate between a Bounced or not row. This will not work if you need to have both a bounced and non-bounced due amount at the same time.
My guess is that you would be better off with an index on each individual column. Having it on both won't help any more than having it on just the first column unless you have other queries that would use the compound index.
Your best bet is to try the query with an index on one column, an index on the other column, and two indexes - one on each column. Do some tests with each (on real data, not test data) and see which works best. Take a look at the query plans to understand why.
Depending on the specific data (both size and cardinality) SQL Server may end up using one, both, or possibly even neither index. The only way to know for sure is to test them each.
Technically, you can have an index on a persisted computed column and use the computed column instead of the OR condition in the query, see Creating Indexes on Computed Columns:
alter table [table] add Max_Due_Amount as
case
when Due_Amount > Bounced_Due_Amount the Due_Ammount
else Bounced_Due_Amount
end
persisted;
go
create index idxTableMaxDueAmount on table (Max_Due_Amount );
go
SELECT * FROM table WHERE Max_Due_Amount > 0;
But in general I'd recommend using the UNION approach like KM suggested.
Specifically for this query, it would be best to create an index on both columns in the order they are used in the where clause. Otherwise the index might not be used.
I have a fairly simple query:
SELECT
col1,
col2…
FROM
dbo.My_Table
WHERE
col1 = #col1 AND
col2 = #col2 AND
col3 <= #col3
It was performing horribly, so I added an index on col1, col2, col3 (int, bit, and datetime). When I checked the query plan it was ignoring my index. I tried reordering the columns in the index in every possible configuration and it always ignored the index. When I run the query it does a clustered index scan (table size is between 700K and 800K rows) and takes 10-12 seconds. When I force it to use my index it returns instantly. I was careful to clear the cache and buffers between tests.
Other things I’ve tried:
UPDATE STATISTICS dbo.My_Table
CREATE STATISTICS tmp_stats ON dbo.My_Table (col1, col2, col3) WITH FULLSCAN
Am I missing anything here? I hate to put an index hint in a stored procedure, but SQL Server just can’t seem to get a clue on this one. Anyone know any other things that might prevent SQL Server from recognizing that using the index is a good idea?
EDIT: One of the columns being returned is a TEXT column, so using a covering index or an INCLUDE won't work :(
You have 800k rows indexed by col1, col2, col3. Col2 is a bit, so its selectivity is 50%. Col3 is a checked on a range (<=), so it's selectivity will be roughly at about 50% too. Which leaves col1. The query is compiled for the generic, parametrized plan, so it has to account for the general case. If you have 10 distinct values of col1, then your index will return approximately 800k /10 * 25% that is about ~20k keys to lookup in the clustered index to retrieve the '...' part. If you have 10k distinct col1 values then the index will return just 20 keys to look up. As you can see, what matters is not how you build your index in this case, but the actual data. Based on the selectivity of col1, the optimizer will choose a plan based on a clustered index scan (as better than 20k key lookups, each lookup at a cost of at least 3-5 page reads) or one based on the non-clustered index (if col1 is selective enough). In real life the distribution of col1 also plays a role, but going into that would complicate the explanation too much.
You can come with the benefit of hindsight and claim the plan is wrong, but the plan is the best cost estimate based on the data available at compile time. You can influence it with hints (index hint as you suggests, or optimize for hints as Quassnoi suggests) but then your query may perform better for your test set, and far worse for a different set of data, say for the case when #col1 = <the value that matches 500k records>. You can also make the index covering, thus eliminating the '...' in the projection list that require the clustered index lookup necessary, in which case the non-clustered index is always a better cost match than the clustered scan.
Kimberley Tripp has a blog article covering this subject, she calls it the 'index tipping point' which explains how come an apparently perfect candidate index is being ignored: a non-clustered index that does not cover the projection list and has poor selectivity will be seen as more costly than a clustered scan.
SQL Server optimizer is not good in optimizing queries that use variables.
If you are sure that you will always benefit from using the index, just put a hint.
If you will put the literal values to the query instead of variables, it will pick the correct statistics and will use the index.
You may also try to put a more light hint:
OPTION (OPTIMIZE FOR (#col1 = 1, #col2 = 0, #col3 = '2009-07-09'))
, which will calculate the best execution plan for these values of the variables, using statistics, and won't stick to using index no matter what.
The order of the index is important for this query:
CREATE INDEX MyIndex ON MyTable (col3 DESC, col2 ASC, col1 ASC)
It's not so much the ASC/DESC as that when sql server goes to match that where clause, it can match on col3 first and walk the index along that value.
Have you tried tossing out the bit from the index?
create index ix1 on My_Table(Col3, Col1) INCLUDE(Col2)
-- include other columns from the select list if needed
Also, you've left out the rest of the columns from the select list. You might want to consider including those if there aren't many either in the index or as INCLUDE statement to create a covering index for the query.
Try masking your parameters to prevent paramter sniffing:
CREATE PROCEDURE MyProc AS
#Col1 INT
-- etc...
AS
DECLARE #MaskedCol1 INT
SET #MaskedCol1 = #Col1
-- etc...
SELECT
col1,
col2…
FROM
dbo.My_Table
WHERE
col1 = #MaskecCol1 AND
-- etc...
Sounds stupid but I've seen SQL server do some weird things because of parameter sniffing.
I bet SQL Server thinks the price of getting the rest of the columns (designated by ... in your example) from the clustered index outweighs the benefit of the index so it just scans the clustered key. If so, see if you can make this a covering index.
Or does it use another index instead?
Are the columns nullable? Sometimes Sql Server thinks it has to scan the table to find NULL values.
Try adding "and col1 is not null" to the query, it mgiht make sqlserver use the index wtihout hint.
Also, check if the statistics are really up to date:
SELECT
object_name = Object_Name(ind.object_id),
IndexName = ind.name,
StatisticsDate = STATS_DATE(ind.object_id, ind.index_id)
FROM SYS.INDEXES ind
order by STATS_DATE(ind.object_id, ind.index_id) desc
If your SELECT is returning columns that aren't in your index SQL my find that its more efficient to scan the clustered index instead of having to do a key lookup to find the other values that you are requesting.
If you have a TEXT column try switching the data type to VARCHAR(MAX) then including the values in the nonclustered index.