Indexes help queries run faster in SQL Server for several reasons. One of those reasons is that indexes can help your update and delete statements lock fewer rows. And I’m not only talking about shared locks, either.
SQL Server has tools that suggest indexes– and they’ll even auto-create the indexes for you.
I’m not a huge fan of these tools because they’ve got some notable flaws: they lead to creating more indexes than you need, and they aren’t super smart about the indexes they recommend.
Ever see those little green messages at the top of an execution plan?
Those are missing index suggestions.
SQL Server loves to suggest that you consider changing up your index game.
The hardest thing about looking at index requests in SQL Server is understanding what the column names mean.
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