Summary

In this lab, you have learned how to evalute the performance characteristics both before and after the creation of a columnstore index for a typical data warehouse query. The queries referenced a fact table and multiple joining dimension tables. You learned how to create the columnstore index and also learned how to explore the metadata and statistics associated of the columnstore index. You then learned how to apply index hints to bypass or force the use of a specific columnstore index. You learned that certain types of data modifications cannot take place on a table with an enabled columnstore index. You also learned two techniques for updating data in the columnstore index – one involving the disabling of the index and another using table partitioning and the ALTER INDEX SWITCH command.