Table of Contents

1. General Tips...............................................................................................................2
2. Tips for designing Tables...........................................................................................3
3. Tips for designing Stored Procedures......................................................................4
4. Tips for designing Cursors........................................................................................5
5. Tips for Indexes...........................................................................................................5
 SQL Server Optimization Tips

1. General Tips
 Try to restrict the queries result set by returning only the
particular columns from the table, not all table's columns.
This can results in good performance benefits, because SQL Server will
return to client only particular columns, not all table's columns. This
can reduce network traffic and boost the overall performance of the
query.
 Try to avoid using SQL Server cursors, whenever possible.
SQL Server cursors can result in some performance degradation in
comparison with select statements. Try to use correlated subquery or
derived tables, if you need to perform row-by-row operations.
 If you need to return the total table's row count, you can use
alternative way instead of SELECT COUNT (*) statement.
Because SELECT COUNT (*) statement make a full table scan to return
the total table's row count, it can take very many time for the large
table. There is another way to determine the total row count in a table.
You can use sysindexes system table, in this case. There is ROWS
column in the sysindexes table. This column contains the total row
count for each table in your database. So, you can use the following
select statement instead of SELECT COUNT (*): SELECT rows FROM
sysindexes WHERE id = OBJECT_ID ('table_name') AND indid < 2 So,
you can improve the speed of such queries in several times.
 Use table variables instead of temporary tables.
Table variables require less locking and logging resources than
temporary tables, so table variables should be used whenever
possible. The table variables are available in SQL Server 2000 only.
 Try to avoid using the DISTINCT clause, whenever possible.
Because using the DISTINCT clause will result in some performance
degradation, you should use this clause only when it is necessary.
 Include SET NOCOUNT ON statement into your stored
procedures to stop the message indicating the number of rows
affected by a T-SQL statement.
This can reduce network traffic, because your client will not receive the
message indicating the number of rows affected by a T-SQL
statement.
 Use the select statements with TOP keyword or the SET
ROWCOUNT statement, if you need to return only the first n
rows.
This can improve performance of your queries, because the smaller
result set will be returned. This can also reduce the traffic between the
server and the clients.
 Try to use UNION ALL statement instead of UNION, whenever
possible.
The UNION ALL statement is much faster than UNION, because UNION
ALL statement does not look for duplicate rows, and UNION statement
does look for duplicate rows, whether or not they exist.
 Try to use constraints instead of triggers, whenever possible.
Constraints are much more efficient than triggers and can boost
 performance. So, you should use constraints instead of triggers,
whenever possible.
 Use user-defined functions to encapsulate code for reuse.
The user-defined functions (UDFs) contain one or more Transact-SQL
statements that can be used to encapsulate code for reuse. Using
UDFs can reduce network traffic.
 You can specify whether the index keys are stored in ascending
or descending order.
For example, using the CREATE INDEX statement with the DESC
option (descending order) can increase the speed of queries, which
return rows in the descending order. By default, the ascending order is
used.
 If you need to delete all tables’ rows, consider using TRUNCATE
TABLE instead of DELETE command.
Using the TRUNCATE TABLE is much fast way to delete all tables’ rows,
because it removes all rows from a table without logging the individual
row deletes.
 Don't use Enterprise Manager to access remote servers over a
slow link or to maintain very large databases.
Because using Enterprise Manager is very resource expensive, use
stored procedures and T-SQL statements, in this case.
 Use SQL Server cursors to allow your application to fetch a
small subset of rows instead of fetching all tables’ rows.
SQL Server cursors allow application to fetch any block of rows from
the result set, including the next n rows, the previous n rows, or n
rows starting at a certain row number in the result set. Using SQL
Server cursors can reduce network traffic because the smaller result
set will be returned.

2. Tips for designing Tables

 Try to use constraints instead of triggers, rules, and defaults
whenever possible.
Constraints are much more efficient than triggers and can boost
performance. Constraints are more consistent and reliable in
comparison to triggers, rules and defaults, because you can make
errors when you write your own code to perform the same actions as
the constraints.
 Use char/varchar columns instead of nchar/nvarchar if you do
not need to store Unicode data.
The char/varchar value uses only one byte to store one character; the
nchar/nvarchar value uses two bytes to store one character, so the
char/varchar columns use two times less space to store data in
comparison with nchar/nvarchar columns.
 If you work with SQL Server 2000, use cascading referential
integrity constraints instead of triggers whenever possible.
For example, if you need to make cascading deletes or updates,
specify the ON DELETE or ON UPDATE clause in the REFERENCES
clause of the CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statements. The
cascading referential integrity constraints are much more efficient than
triggers and can boost performance.
3. Tips for designing Stored Procedures
 Use stored procedures instead of heavy-duty queries.
This can reduce network traffic, because your client will send to server
only stored procedure name (perhaps with some parameters) instead
of large heavy-duty queries text. Stored procedures can be used to
enhance security and conceal underlying data objects also. For
example, you can give the users permission to execute the stored
procedure to work with the restricted set of the columns and data.
 Call stored procedure using its fully qualified name.
The complete name of an object consists of four identifiers: the server
name, database name, owner name, and object name. An object name
that specifies all four parts is known as a fully qualified name. Using
fully qualified names eliminates any confusion about which stored
procedure you want to run and can boost performance because SQL
Server has a better chance to reuse the stored procedures execution
plans if they were executed using fully qualified names
 Consider returning the integer value as an RETURN statement
instead of an integer value as part of a recordset.
The RETURN statement exits unconditionally from a stored procedure,
so the statements following RETURN are not executed. Though the
RETURN statement is generally used for error checking, you can use
this statement to return an integer value for any other reason. Using
RETURN statement can boost performance because SQL Server will not
create a recordset.
 Don't use the prefix "sp_" in the stored procedure name if you
need to create a stored procedure to run in a database other
than the master database.
The prefix "sp_" is used in the system stored procedures names.
Microsoft does not recommend using the prefix "sp_" in the user-
created stored procedure name, because SQL Server always looks for
a stored procedure beginning with "sp_" in the following order: the
master database, the stored procedure based on the fully qualified
name provided, the stored procedure using dbo as the owner, if one is
not specified. So, when you have the stored procedure with the prefix
"sp_" in the database other than master, the master database is
always checked first, and if the user-created stored procedure has the
same name as a system stored procedure, the user-created stored
procedure will never be executed.
 Use the sp_executesql stored procedure instead of the
EXECUTE statement.
The sp_executesql stored procedure supports parameters. So, using
the sp_executesql stored procedure instead of the EXECUTE statement
improve readability of your code when there are many parameters are
used. When you use the sp_executesql stored procedure to execute a
Transact-SQL statement that will be reused many times, the SQL
Server query optimizer will reuse the execution plan it generates for
the first execution when the change in parameter values to the
statement is the only variation.
4. Tips for designing Cursors
 Do not forget to close SQL Server cursor when its result set is
not needed.
To close SQL Server cursor, you can use CLOSE {cursor_name}
command. This command releases the cursor result set and frees any
cursor locks held on the rows on which the cursor is positioned.
 Do not forget to deallocate SQL Server cursor when the data
structures comprising the cursor are not needed.
To deallocate SQL Server cursor, you can use DEALLOCATE
{cursor_name} command. This command removes a cursor reference
and releases the data structures comprising the cursor.
 Try to reduce the number of columns to process in the cursor.
Include in the cursor's select statement only necessary columns. It will
reduce the cursor result set. So, the cursor will use fewer resources. It
can increase cursor performance and reduce SQL Server overhead.
 Use READ ONLY cursors, whenever possible, instead of
updatable cursors.
Because using cursors can reduce concurrency and lead to
unnecessary locking, try to use READ ONLY cursors, if you do not need
to update cursor result set.
 Try avoiding using insensitive, static and keyset cursors,
whenever possible.
These types of cursor produce the largest amount of overhead on SQL
Server, because they cause a temporary table to be created in
TEMPDB, which results in some performance degradation.
 Use FAST_FORWARD cursors, whenever possible.
The FAST_FORWARD cursors produce the least amount of overhead on
SQL Server, because there are read-only cursors and can only be
scrolled from the first to the last row. Use FAST_FORWARD cursor if
you do not need to update cursor result set and the FETCH NEXT will
be the only used fetch option.
 Use FORWARD_ONLY cursors, if you need updatable cursor and
the FETCH NEXT will be the only used fetch option.
If you need read-only cursor and the FETCH NEXT will be the only used
fetch option, try to use FAST_FORWARD cursor instead of
FORWARD_ONLY cursor. By the way, if one of the FAST_FORWARD or
FORWARD_ONLY is specified the other cannot be specified.

5. Tips for Indexes

 Consider creating index on column(s) frequently used in the
WHERE, ORDER BY, and GROUP BY clauses.
These column(s) are best candidates for index creating. You should
analyze your queries very attentively to avoid creating not useful
indexes.
 Drop indexes that are not used.
Because each index take up disk space and slow the adding, deleting,
and updating of rows, you should drop indexes that are not used. You
can use Index Wizard to identify indexes that are not used in your
queries.
 Try to create indexes on columns that have integer values
rather than character values.
 Because the integer values usually have less size then the characters
values size (the size of the int data type is 4 bytes, the size of the
bigint data type is 8 bytes), you can reduce the number of index pages
which are used to store the index keys. This reduces the number of
reads required to read the index and boost overall index performance.
 Limit the number of indexes, if your application updates data
very frequently.
Because each index take up disk space and slow the adding, deleting,
and updating of rows, you should create new indexes only after
analyze the uses of the data, the types and frequencies of queries
performed, and how your queries will use the new indexes. In many
cases, the speed advantages of creating the new indexes outweigh the
disadvantages of additional space used and slowly rows modification.
However, avoid using redundant indexes; create them only when it is
necessary. For read-only table, the number of indexes can be
increased.
 Check that index you tried to create does not already exist.
Keep in mind that when you create primary key constraint or unique
key constraints SQL Server automatically creates index on the
column(s) participate in these constraints. If you specify another index
name, you can create the indexes on the same column(s) again and
again.
 Create clustered index instead of nonclustered to increase
performance of the queries that return a range of values and
for the queries that contain the GROUP BY or ORDER BY clauses
and return the sort results.
Because every table can have only one clustered index, you should
choose the column(s) for this index very carefully. Try to analyze all
your queries, choose most frequently used queries and include into the
clustered index only those column(s), which provide the most
performance benefits from the clustered index creation.
 Create nonclustered indexes to increase performance of the
queries that return few rows and where the index has good
selectivity.
In comparison with a clustered index, which can be only one for each
table, each table can have as many as 249 nonclustered indexes.
However, you should consider nonclustered index creation as carefully
as the clustered index, because each index take up disk space and
drag on data modification.
 Avoid creating a clustered index based on an incrementing key.
For example, if a table has surrogate integer primary key declared as
IDENTITY and the clustered index was created on this column, then
every time data is inserted into this table, the rows will be added to
the end of the table. When many rows will be added a "hot spot" can
occur. A "hot spot" occurs when many queries try to read or write data
in the same area at the same time. A "hot spot" results in I/O
bottleneck.
Note. By default, SQL Server creates clustered index for the primary
key constraint. So, in this case, you should explicitly specify
NONCLUSTERED keyword to indicate that a nonclustered index is
created for the primary key constraint.
 Create a clustered index for each table.
If you create a table without clustered index, the data rows will not be
 stored in any particular order. This structure is called a heap. Every
time data is inserted into this table, the row will be added to the end
of the table. When many rows will be added a "hot spot" can occur. To
avoid "hot spot" and improve concurrency, you should create a
clustered index for each table.
 If you create a composite (multi-column) index, try to order
the columns in the key so that the WHERE clauses of the
frequently used queries match the column(s) that are leftmost
in the index.
The order of the columns in a composite (multi-column) index is very
important. The index will be used to evaluate a query only if the
leftmost index key's column are specified in the WHERE clause of the
query. For example, if you create composite index such as "Name,
Age", then the query with the WHERE clause such as "WHERE Name =
'Alex'" will use the index, but the query with the WHERE clause such as
"WHERE Age = 28" will not use the index.
 If you need to join several tables very frequently, consider
creating index on the joined columns.
This can significantly improve performance of the queries against the
joined tables.
 If your application will perform the same query over and over
on the same table, consider creating a covering index including
columns from this query.
A covering index is an index, which includes all of the columns
referenced in the query. So the creating covering index can improve
performance because all the data for the query is contained within the
index itself and only the index pages, not the data pages, will be used
to retrieve the data. Covering indexes can bring a lot of performance
to a query, because it can save a huge amount of I/O operations.
 Use the SQL Server Profiler Create Trace Wizard with "Identify
Scans of Large Tables" trace to determine which tables in your
database may need indexes.
This trace will show which tables are being scanned by queries instead
of using an index.