I’m an outspoken advocate of always using a clustered index on each and every table you create as a matter of best practice. But even I will agree that there’s a case for using the odd heap now and then.
Tag: rid lookup
Working with covering indexes
As you could read in the indexing basics article, a well-defined index can boost query performance, but there are a few more basic tricks that can have a great impact on how your query is executed. One of the most important is a technique called covering indexes. A covering index is basically a non-clustered index that covers all the columns you need in a query, not just the keys.