22-25 April 2026

Scaling Clustered Column Store Indexes

Proposed session for SQLBits 2026

TL; DR

Clustered Column Store Indexes are a great tool when used correctly. This session will explain on how to plan, configure, and operate Clustered Columstore indexes to handle millions, billions and trillions of rows.

Session Details

Clustered Column Store Indexes are a great tool when used correctly. This session will explain on how to plan, configure, and operate Clustered Columstore indexes to handle millions, billions and trillions of rows. This is done with a real-world example that is in production. Avoiding mistakes in the beginning will save you lots of data wrangling over time. Come and learn how to partition, select the right datatypes, and insert the data into a Clustered Column Store Index to achieve optimal performance results.
This session is for both developers and DBA's that plan or already have a clustered columnstore.
This includes all the latest and greatest additions of SQL 2025 for columnstores.

3 things you'll get out of this session

Learn what column store is and why it needs your help to work excellent. Learn how to enable all the optimizations columnstores have to make your queries fly. Learn what not to do with a columnstore index