Developing SQL Databases — Question 126

Note: The question is part of a series of questions that use the same or similar answer choices. An answer choice may be correct for more than one question in the series. Each question is independent of the other question in the series. Information and details provided in a question apply only to that question.
You have a reporting database that includes a non-partitioned fact table named Fact_Sales. The table is persisted on disk.
Users report that their queries take a long time to complete. The system administrator reports that the table takes too much space in the database. You observe that there are no indexes defined on the table, and many columns have repeating values.
You need to create the most efficient index on the table, minimize disk storage and improve reporting query performance.
What should you do?

Answer options

• A. Create a clustered index on the table.
• B. Create a nonclustered index on the table.
• C. Create a nonclustered filtered index on the table.
• D. Create a clustered columnstore index on the table.
• E. Create a nonclustered columnstore index on the table.
• F. Create a hash index on the table.

Correct answer: D

Explanation

The correct answer is D, as a clustered columnstore index is optimized for large volumes of data, significantly reducing storage size while improving query performance for reporting scenarios. The other options do not provide the same level of efficiency in both storage and performance, especially for tables with repetitive data.