Here is my storage for Artists 1 -> a record 2 -> a record ... 49 -> a record on disk Oracle has 2 files 1) the index (small file) holding the keys and the pointer (disk offset) to the record 2) the records (large file) w/ all the data when I query using the primary key, oracle does 2 disk lookups 1) search the Index, binary search 2) using the disk offset, do a direct read of the record If I do not have an index (where city = 'Boston') Oracle MUST do a FULL TABLE SCAN and this is slow As an Appl Support DBA, the more I know how the data is used the more I will build "extra" indexes the cost of adding an index to a column is... an extra file on disk, the cost to insert/update/delete goes up becuase Oracle must change 2 files (index/data) however the cost to query goes down ------------------------------------------ a Data Warehouse has a Second Database on top of the orginal DB this secnd DB is the indexes to the orginal