Nonclustered index structure

The table in Figure 5-7 shows a nonclustered index on lname. The data rows at the far right show pages in ascending order by employee_id (10, 11, 12, and so on) because there is a clustered index on that column.

The root and intermediate pages store:

The leaf level stores:

The row ID in higher levels of the index is used for indexes that allow duplicate keys. If a data modification changes the index key or deletes a row, the row ID positively identifies all occurrences of the key at all index levels.

Figure 5-7: Nonclustered index structure

Series of page images for a nonclustered index, from the root page to the data pages The images of the data pages show pages in ascending order by employee_id (10, 11, 12, and so on) because there is a clustered index on that column.