Sql-server – tuning huge delete operation on sql server table

Testing based on your comments

Tested on SQL Server 2014 SP3

stg_table and stg_table_1 doesn't have indexes on service_date.

both of these tables are loaded with million rows of data and delete operation is taking lot of time.

DDL

CREATE TABLE dbo.st_table_1( stg_table_1_ID INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
                             service_date datetime2,
                            val  int)
CREATE TABLE dbo.stg_table (stg_table_ID INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
                            service_date datetime2,
                            val  int)

PK's + Clustered indexes on identity fields.

DML

INSERT INTO dbo.stg_table WITH(TABLOCK)
(
service_date,val) 
SELECT -- 1M
 DATEADD(S,rownum,GETDATE()),rownum
 FROM
 (SELECT TOP(1000000) ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)) as rownum
FROM master.dbo.spt_values spt1
CROSS APPLY master.dbo.spt_values spt2) as sptvalues

INSERT INTO dbo.st_table_1 WITH(TABLOCK)
(
service_date,val) 
SELECT -- 2.5M
 DATEADD(S,rownum,GETDATE()),rownum
 FROM
 (SELECT TOP(2500000) ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)) as rownum
FROM master.dbo.spt_values spt1
CROSS APPLY master.dbo.spt_values spt2) as sptvalues

INSERT INTO dbo.stg_table WITH(TABLOCK)
(
service_date,val) 
SELECT -- 4M
 DATEADD(S,rownum,GETDATE()),rownum
 FROM
 (SELECT TOP(4000000) ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)) as rownum
FROM master.dbo.spt_values spt1
CROSS APPLY master.dbo.spt_values spt2) as sptvalues

2.5M rows in dbo.st_table_1 and 5M rows in dbo.stg_table (Almost) all of these 2.5M rows will be deleted by the query Which is a more than 10 times less than yours.

Running your query

The actual execution plan for your base delete statement

As expected dbo.stg_table is accessed twice to get the max & min values with a stream aggregate. The cpu time & elapsed / execution time:

  CPU time = 4906 ms,  elapsed time = 4919 ms.

A missing index hint is added to the execution plan:

CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [<Name of Missing Index, sysname,>]
ON [dbo].[st_table_1] ([service_date])
INCLUDE ([stg_table_1_ID])

However, when we add the index, an extra sort appears to delete the rows from this newly added index:

The plan

And the cpu time / elapsed time increases:

   CPU time = 11156 ms,  elapsed time = 11332 ms.

YMMV, but from my example, based on your comments about data, it did not improve the query.

Creating an index on [dbo].[stg_table]

CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_service_date
ON [dbo].[stg_table] ([service_date]);

As a result the MAX() and MIN() can leverage the newly created index to return only one row instead of a full clustered index scan:

With the execution time improved:

 SQL Server Execution Times:
   CPU time = 2609 ms,  elapsed time = 4028 ms.

And the execution plan

But this is only based on indexing & my own example. Proceed at your own risk.

---

Extra Notes

You should look into splitting that delete into separate batches so it won't fill up the log file & not having one big block of failed / succeeded delete .

You could also consider using (TABLOCK) so the entire table is locked from the very beginning.

SET STATISTICS IO, TIME ON;
delete dbo.st_table_1 WITH(TABLOCK)
where service_date between(select min(service_date) from stg_table)
                   and (select max(service_date) from stg_table);

---

Update: SELECT INTO + sp_rename

select * into db.temp_stg_table_1
from db.stg_table_1
where service_date not between( select min(service_date) from db.stg_table)
                             and (select max(service_date) from db.stg_table);

exec sp_rename 'stg_table_1' , 'stg_table_1_old'

exec sp_rename 'temp_stg_table_1' , 'test_table_1'

drop table stg_table_1_old

how about if go with above logic to delete the millions of records. any advantages and disadvantages with that.

Apart from performance, sp_rename needs a Sch-M lock to complete, meaning that it has to wait for all other sessions to release their locks on the table before it can be modified. Any indexes/constraints on the original table will be gone and you will have to recreate them.

When I run the query on my own data:

select * into dbo.temp_stg_table_1
from dbo.st_table_1
where service_date not between( select min(service_date) from dbo.stg_table)
                             and (select max(service_date) from dbo.stg_table);

This does not represent your data, keep that in mind.

It is reading all rows to return 0 which is not optimal.

With a high execution time:

 SQL Server Execution Times:
   CPU time = 27717 ms,  elapsed time = 10657 ms.

But this is not really meaningful without more information regarding your data. A query plan would be needed to give out more correct advice.