Optimizing top-N and pagination queries

Queries to find the top-N rows or page through results are common. For example, to find the three winners of a tournament, top five selling products or page 5 of the most recent comments. But how do you write the SQL to answer these questions and which indexes ensure the statements are fast? Watch the recording to learn the basics of order by, how to use fetch first to get the top-N rows and paged search results, and indexing strategies to make these queries fast. Highlights include: 00:10 - Slow pagination query 01:50 - Order by basics 14:00 - Demo of order by 17:30 - Demo controlling location of nulls 26:00 - Top-N queries using fetch first 30:00 - Real world demo of fetch first N bricks 32:40 - Creating indexes for Top-N queries 35:20 - Demo of Top-N queries 40:50 - Demo of using indexes to avoid sorting 46:30 - How descending sorts affects index usage 56:00 - Pagination queries 56:30 - Inconsistent results for pagination queries 59:40 - Performance of pagination queries 1:02:55 - Demo of pagination queries 1:09:50 - Summary of pagination & top-N SQL