RedGate SQL Clone - columnstore indexes

  • Hi,
    Does anyone have experience of cloning a DW that uses columnstore indexes.  Thinking of the clone moving to different server.
    I'm interested in what happens to the columnstore indexes - I suppose the compressed row groups come across - do we have to warm the cache so to speak?
    Best
    Lee

  • The storage of the index on the image is going to be basically identical to what's stored inside a database because it's just a copy of the pages, so there's nothing special about the columnstore that's going to be hurt by being in a clone. Now, the cache, yeah, that will have to get warmed up after creating a clone, but it's the same as if you restored the database. Everything is on disk, not in-memory. There will be a process of getting the hotter stuff loaded into memory. The clone process does mean that the step of loading stuff into memory is a little slower since it's not accessing local storage but is going through the hop out to the image, but since we're talking dev/test here (not production, never production), then it's pretty painless.

    I hope that helps.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

  • Thanks Grant - that makes sense.   One use case I have in my mind is to run a daily clone:  Prod to Test/Sandbox (for ad-hoc user querys).   Reluctant to have ad-hoc user queries on fact table run in conjunction with production workloads.

  • leehbi - Wednesday, January 10, 2018 6:41 AM

    Thanks Grant - that makes sense.   One use case I have in my mind is to run a daily clone:  Prod to Test/Sandbox (for ad-hoc user querys).   Reluctant to have ad-hoc user queries on fact table run in conjunction with production workloads.

    Yeah, that can work. Offloading reporting like this is a valid use case too.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning

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