“select count(id) from table” takes up to 30 minutes to calculate in SQL Azure

Question

I have a database in SQL Azure which is not taking between 15 and 30 minutes to do a simple:

select count(id) from mytable

The database is abou

Answer 1

Suggestion: try select count(*) instead: it might actually improve the response time:

• http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/which-index-will-sql-server-use-to-count-all-rows/

Also, have you done an "explain plan"?

• http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2011/12/15/sql-azure-management-portal-tips-and-tricks-part-ii/

• http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1657.gaining-performance-insight-into-windows-azure-sql-database.aspx

============ UPDATE ============

Thank you for getting the statistics.

You're doing a full table scan of 2M rows - not good :(

POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: query system table row_count instead:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/arunrakwal/archive/2012/04/09/sql-azure-list-of-tables-with-record-count.aspx

select t.name ,s.row_count from sys.tables t
join sys.dm_db_partition_stats s
ON t.object_id = s.object_id
  and t.type_desc = 'USER_TABLE'
  and t.name not like '%dss%'
  and s.index_id = 1