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Dropping B-tree index on a Low cardinality column?

3023380Nov 13 2015 — edited Nov 14 2015

Hi,

We are using application related to Human Task Workflow. In one of the HWF tables, we have a low cardinality column (4 or 5 unique values for over a million rows in the table).

There was a index on this low cardinality column. We dropped this column and the performance of the select query involving this column improved by 100%. We achieved the same result by adding a bitmap index on this column instead of the default B-tree index which gets created.

Of course, since it's an OLTP table, we dropped the bitmap index later on this column.

My reasoning for implementing this change (of dropping B-tree index column & resulting performance improvement) is that this low cardinality column shouldn't be having a B-tree index on this. However, I am looking for help in trying to find more data points to justify this change.

I look forward for views / suggestions / more datapoints from experience DBAs on this.

Thanks in advance,

Prash

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Locked on Dec 12 2015
Added on Nov 13 2015
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