Get Your ColumnScore

You’re thinking about using Microsoft SQL Server’s columnstore indexes to make your queries go faster. Are they a good fit? Take this one-page test to find out!

Think about just one of your tables – the one you’re most likely to use columnstore indexes on – as you answer these questions:

Number of rows in the table:*
- Under 1,000,000
- 1-10 Million
- 10 Million to 100 Million
- 100 Million to 1 Billion
- Over 1 Billion
The table's size on disk:*
- Under 10 GB
- 10-100GB
- 100-1,000GB
- Over 1 terabyte
Number of columns in the table:*
- 1-10
- 11-25
- Over 25
We have one column we usually filter by, like SalesDate:*
- No
- Yes
To load the data, we:*
- Insert data less than 10,000 rows at a time (like INSERT VALUES)
- Insert 10,000-100,000 rows in a single statement
- Insert 100,000-1,000,000 rows in a single statement
- Insert over 1,000,000 rows at a time
To update the data, we:*
- Never update it
- Delete the original rows and reload new ones
- Use the UPDATE statement
To delete data, we:*
- Never delete it
- Delete a million or more rows with one DELETE statement
- Delete less than 1,000,000 rows at a time
Table name (optional)

On the next screen, we’re going to show the score for this table. If you want to print it out or take a screenshot, this will help if you’re deciding about columnstore indexes for several different tables.

Columnstore Indexes

Microsoft SQL Server’s columnstore indexes can help report queries go faster with no changes whatsoever.

However, they can also cause regular queries to go slower, and can require a lot of changes to your data-loading processes.

To help figure out whether columnstore indexes are right for you, we built this simple one-page quiz. Let’s see how your table scores.

Where to Learn More

Fundamentals of Columnstore Indexes – online class.

NikoPort.com – over 100 blog posts with tons of examples.

Columnstore Bookmarks – a collection of useful resources.