Defragment partitions to merge extents

You can improve performance by defragmenting partitions to merge non-contiguous extents.

A frequently updated table can become fragmented over time which degrades the performance every time the table is accessed by the server. Defragmenting a table brings data rows closer together and avoids partition header page overflow problems.

Defragmenting an index brings the entries closer together which improves the speed at which the table information is accessed.

You cannot stop a defragment request after the request has been submitted. Additionally, there are specific objects that cannot be defragmented and you cannot defragment a partition if another operation is running that conflicts with the defragment request.

To defragment a table, index, or partition, run the EXECUTE FUNCTION command with the defragment argument. You can specify the table name, index name, or partition number that you want to defragment.

You can use the onstat -g defragment command to display information about the active defragment requests.