A database index is a data structure that improves the speed of data retrieval operations on a database table at the cost of slower writes and increased storage space.
Indexing is a way of sorting a number of records on multiple fields. Creating an index on a field in a table creates another data structure which holds the field value, and pointer to the record it relates to. This index structure is then sorted, allowing Binary Searches to be performed on it.
B- trees are the most commonly used data structures for indexes. The reason B- trees are the most popular data structure for indexes is because of the fact that they time efficient – because look-ups, deletions, and insertions can all be done in logarithmic time. And, another major reason B- trees are more commonly used is because the data that is stored inside the B- tree can be sorted. But, which data structure is actually used for index is determined by the RDBMS. And, in some scenarios, you can actually specify which data structure you want your database to use when you create the index itself.
Why index is needed?
When data is stored on disk based storage devices, it is stored as blocks of data. These blocks are accessed in their entirety, making them the atomic disk access operation. Disk blocks are structured in much the same way as linked lists; both contain a section for data, a pointer to the location of the next node (or block), and both need not be stored contiguously.
Due to the fact that a number of records can only be sorted on one field, we can state that searching on a field that isn’t sorted requires a Linear Search which requires N/2 block accesses (on average), where N is the number of blocks that the table spans. If that field is a non-key field (i.e. doesn’t contain unique entries) then the entire table space must be searched at N block accesses.
Whereas with a sorted field, a Binary Search may be used, this has log2 N block accesses. Also since the data is sorted given a non-key field, the rest of the table doesn’t need to be searched for duplicate values, once a higher value is found. Thus the performance increase is substantial.
