Index type

May 19, 2015
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Index type Description
Clustered A clustered index sorts and stores the data rows of the table or view in order based on the clustered index key. The clustered index is implemented as a B-tree index structure that supports fast retrieval of the rows, based on their clustered index key values.
Non clustered A non clustered index can be defined on a table or view with a clustered index or on a heap. Each index row in the non clustered index contains the non clustered key value and a row locator. This locator points to the data row in the clustered index or heap having the key value. The rows in the index are stored in the order of the index key values, but the data rows are not guaranteed to be in any particular order unless a clustered index is created on the table.
Unique A unique index ensures that the index key contains no duplicate values and therefore every row in the table or view is in some way unique.

Uniqueness can be a property of both clustered and non clustered indexes.
Column store An xVelocity memory optimised column store index based on vertical partitioning of the data by columns, stored as large objects (LOB).
Index with included columns A non clustered index that is extended to include non key columns in addition to the key columns.
Index on computed columns An index on a column that is derived from the value of one or more other columns, or certain deterministic inputs.
Filtered An optimised non clustered index, especially suited to cover queries that select from a well-defined subset of data. It uses a filter predicate to index a portion of rows in the table. A well-designed filtered index can improve query performance, reduce index maintenance costs, and reduce index storage costs compared with full-table indexes.
Spatial A spatial index provides the ability to perform certain operations more efficiently on spatial objects (spatial data) in a column of the geometry data type. The spatial index reduces the number of objects on which relatively costly spatial operations need to be applied.
XML A shredded, and persisted, representation of the XML binary large objects (BLOBs) in the xml data type column.
Full-text A special type of token-based functional index that is built and maintained by the Microsoft Full-Text Engine for SQL Server. It provides efficient support for sophisticated word searches in character string data.
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