Oracle SQL Tutorial 8 - Indexes - Database Design Primer 5

The concept of an index is extremely important when managing a database. An index has the power of making your database very quick or it has the power to bog down your update, delete, and insert statements. The trick is to find a good balance. You will want to index any columns that are used continually in a select or a join. By default, all primary keys are indexed as well as any columns with the UNIQUE column attribute. I suggest you consider adding an index to your foreign keys as these will often be used in joins as well. You can actually create an index on a group of columns. This will allow you to search for data and return multiple columns. This is known as a composite index. There are many other things to database more than we have covered. I have decided I will cover these as we go so that we can start applying what we learn practically.