First introduced in SQL Server 2012, columnstore indexes can give you major performance gains -- provided you have the right workloads. Here's how columnstore indexes work and what types of data ...

An index stores both the values of a table's columns and a system of directions that enable access to rows in that table by index value. Defining an index on a column or set of columns enables SAS, ...

SQL Server 2014 introduces clustered columnstore indexes, which become the primary storage method for the table. These can be updated, but cannot be combined with any other indexes.

The index includes five or more columns. The index is more than 200 bytes. Large indexes require more storage and increase the cost of index maintenance. If the index includes five or more col­umns ...