Columnstore index is a technology used for storing, retrieving, and indexing using the column data as opposed to the traditional row-based formats. Columnstore indexes were first introduced in SQL Server 2012 with certain limitations, and some of the limitations have been removed in SQL Server 2014. In SQL Server 2014, there is support for both clustered and non-clustered columnstore indexes, which is a change from SQL Server 2012 as it only supported non-clustered index columnstore indexes.

The SQL Server columnstore index differs from more traditional index types as it stores and manages data using the column-based data storage and column-based query processing. Columnstore indexes were initially designed to work well for data warehousing and decision support environments. In these types of environments, it's not uncommon that bulk loads run during an overnight batch processing job, when users are not accessing the system. During peak hours, the system supports read...