Niko Neugebauer explains something about rebuilding rowstore indexes:
This blogpost will be about older SQL Server versions (2016, 2017) and some implications that I have found that people rather do not understand, until they hit the problems in productions – the ONLINE creation & rebuild operations for the Rowstore indexes when having Columnstore Indexes on their tables.
As you should know by now – SQL Server 2017 & SQL Server 2019 respectively brought the ONLINE features support for the Columnstore Indexes (Nonclustered(2017) & Clustered(2019)) and I have blogged about those news in Columnstore Indexes – part 96 (“Nonclustered Columnstore Index Online Rebuild”) in 2017 and in Columnstore Indexes – part 123 (“Clustered Columnstore Index Online Rebuild”) in 2018.What I honestly did not expect is the amount of the same question I have faced as in the last 3 months regarding the rebuild operations for the the ONLINE creation & rebuild operations for the Rowstore indexes when having Columnstore Indexes.
Read on to see the demonstration for when you have a clustered columnstore index and a nonclustered columnstore index.