Large Table Query - need more speed

i have several tables that are queried at one time thru joins. all the tables are fairly large (millions of rows), except one, which particularly big.

i have indexes on the tables and have run Query Analyzer's index tuning. it does not show any changes that are needed. i have reviewed the execution plan to see that the one table is the problem

does anyone have any suggestions, comment, advice for speeding up the queries? i suspect that a hardware change may be needed.

thanks in advance

Unfortunately big tables and complex queries will take time. Exactly how long depends on quite a few factors - indexing, performance tuning, hardware (the more RAM the better), and most importantly, the actual RDBMS itself. Obviously the more powerful the RDBMS, the more control you shold have over being able to fine tune your query.

For millions-of-rows tables, you'd want to be using powerful DB systems like Oracle, SQL Server, and PostgreSQL. These RDBM's include tools to optimize your queries.

Hi,
my experience tells me: if you have large queries with joined tables and lots of columns, try to do the following:

question each column if you realy need it.
select only the ones you need for the further process or display.

if you join large tables and you have an "order by" statement, it takes at least two steps for the database to deliver.

If the join reduces the number of rows, it coul be wise to do more than one select statement. This gives more workload to the middle tier, but releases the databse a little. And, and this is important, it reduces the traffic.

Most of the times I had response problems, the backend did it's job, but the transfer was so much, that it took too long.

Resume: reduce the datatransfer first as much as possible and you'll have much better results.