Adding Indexes To a Partitioned table in SQL Server 2012

I have recently converted our one large table to use table partitioning in SQL Server 2012.

It's a table that stores logs based on a time. So I created a partition function to split the table on my [time] column which is of Type DATETIME2(2). My partion scheme then maps each day to a new .ndf file in its own filegroup.

Now I need some help with adding the indexes for this table, and I am slightly confused between the whole, Clustered and non-clustered and Aligned and Non-aligned indexes. So I thought I would come seek assistance here as I believe the indexing plays a large role in the table partitioning performance.

So my reason for asking.

When doing a sql query on data that would fall into a single partition, I noticed in Resource Monitor that while running this query I could see all the .ndf files being loaded and then read from. It appears as if sql was goign through every partition to execute my query. From my knowledge of table partitioning, it should only need to access the partition / file that the data is in?

This lead me to think that my Indexing is not correct.

Here is the summary of my [Logs] Table Structure:



So now As you can see, I have set The time and the logID as a compound PK. All the other columns are irrelevant for this question.

So currently I have the following two Indexes on the table:

CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [NCILogIdLogs] ON [dbo].[Logs]
(
    [logId] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = OFF,     DROP_EXISTING = OFF, ONLINE = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON)
GO

ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Logs] ADD  CONSTRAINT [PK_Logs] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [logId] ASC,
    [time] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ONLINE = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON)
GO

Could some one please explain the idea behind indexing the different partitions.

My understanding:

You need a index that span

In order for the table to be partitioned, your clustered index should be created as:-

ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Logs] ADD  CONSTRAINT [PK_Logs] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [logId] ASC,
    [time] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ONLINE = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PS_dbo_Date_ByDay](Time)

You can then view the different partitions by running:-

SELECT 
    t.name AS TableName, i.name AS IndexName, p.partition_number, p.partition_id, 
    i.data_space_id, f.function_id, f.type_desc, r.boundary_id, r.value AS BoundaryValue, p.rows
FROM 
    sys.tables AS t
INNER JOIN
    sys.indexes AS i ON t.object_id = i.object_id
INNER JOIN
    sys.partitions AS p ON i.object_id = p.object_id AND i.index_id = p.index_id 
INNER JOIN
    sys.partition_schemes AS s ON i.data_space_id = s.data_space_id
INNER JOIN
    sys.partition_functions AS f ON s.function_id = f.function_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN 
    sys.partition_range_values AS r ON f.function_id = r.function_id AND r.boundary_id = p.partition_number
WHERE 
    t.name = 'Logs'
AND 
    i.type <= 1
ORDER BY p.partition_number;

The table is essentially carved up into different sections this will allow queries to reference the different sections without blocking each other (try inserting records into two different partitions at the same time, then try it on a non-partitioned table).

This will be the same for an ALIGNED index. Create it on the paritition scheme (the same as the clustered index) and it will also be carved up (the SELECT above will show you).

However you can create a NON-ALIGNED index, just don't add the ON PS_dbo_Date_ByDay, use PRIMARY or another filegroup.

Hope this helps.

EDIT:- Your primary key contains a column (LogID) that is not part of the partition. The table will be partitioned but there could be a performance impact. I asked a similar question on here a while ago, here's the link:-

Partitioning Query

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#76795, answer score: 2