Invitation and roundup from Michael J. Swart.
Indexes are strange things. You never need to explicitly create one to create a fully-functional database, but if you want a database to perform well, they’re indispensable.
And there are so many aspects to write about! Like internals, covering, clustered, xml, fulltext, b-trees, hints, maintenance of, included columns, filtered, redundant, missing and tons more.
In fact my SQL Server 2008 Administrator’s Pocket Consultant (The first handy textbook I could grab) has an index entry on “indexes” that has 22 sub-entries.