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Home/Questions/SQL/Explain the architectural trade-offs when optimizing a query on 100M+ rows: indexing vs. partitioning vs. materialized views. When does each approach become cost-prohibitive or operationally burdensome, and how do you quantify impact?

Explain the architectural trade-offs when optimizing a query on 100M+ rows: indexing vs. partitioning vs. materialized views. When does each approach become cost-prohibitive or operationally burdensome, and how do you quantify impact?

SQLhard0.5 min readPremium
Frequency
Low
Asked at 1 company
Category
487
questions in SQL
Difficulty Split
130E|271M|86H
in this category
Total Bank
1,863
across 7 categories
Asked at these companies
Bristol Myers Squibb
Key Concepts Tested
optimizationpartitionwindow
Expert AnswerPremium
103 wordsInterview-ready
Architectural Logic: Indexing—speeds reads, slows writes, costs storage; partitioning—prunes at scan, requires partition design; materialized views—precompute, cost refresh. Why each: Index for point/range lookup on filter columns; partition for time/entity-based pruning; MV for repeated aggregations. Scalability: Indexes on wide tables → write amplification; over-partitioning → small-file problem; MVs → refresh time and storage....
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