Pro Oracle SQL

Chapter 12. Indexes

Riyaj Shamsudeen

Indexes are critical structures needed for efficient retrieval of rows, for uniqueness enforcement, and for the efficient implementation of referential constraints. Oracle Database provides many index types suited for different needs of application access methods. Effective choice of index type and critical choice of columns to index are of paramount importance for optimal performance. Inadequate or incorrect indexing strategy can lead to performance issues. In this chapter, I will discuss basic implementation of indexes, various index types, their use cases, and strategy to choose optimal index type. Indexes available in Oracle Database as of version 11gR2 can be broadly classified in to one of three categories ...