optimizing a CTE Hierarchy

Question

I have a table of accounts with a typical acct/parent account architecture to represent a hierarchy of accounts (SQL Server 2012). I created a VIEW using a CTE to hash out the hierarchy, and on the whole it works beautifully, and as intended. I can query the hierarchy at any level, and see the branches easily.

There is one business logic field that needs to be returned as a function of the hierarchy. A field in each account record describes the size of the business (we'll call it CustomerCount). The logic I need to report on needs to roll up the CustomerCount from the whole branch. In other words, given an account, I need to sum up the customercount values for that account along with every child in every branch below the account along the hierarchy.

I successfully calculated the field using a hierarchy field built within the CTE, which looks like acct4.acct3.acct2.acct1. The problem I'm running into is simply making it run fast. Without this one calculated field, the query runs in ~3 seconds. When I add in the calculated field, it turns into a 4 minute query.

Here is the best version I've been able to come up with that returns the correct results. I'm looking for ideas on how I can restructure this AS A VIEW without such huge sacrifices to performance.

I understand the reason this one goes slow (requires calculating a predicate in the where clause), but I can't think of another way to structure it and still get same results.

Here's some sample code to build a table and do the CTE pretty much exactly as it works in my environment.

Use Tempdb
go
CREATE TABLE dbo.Account
(
   Acctid varchar(1) NOT NULL
    , Name varchar(30) NULL
    , ParentId varchar(1) NULL
    , CustomerCount int NULL
);

INSERT Account
SELECT 'A','Best Bet',NULL,21  UNION ALL
SELECT 'B','eStore','A',30 UNION ALL
SELECT 'C','Big Bens','B',75 UNION ALL
SELECT 'D','Mr. Jimbo','B',50 UNION ALL
SELECT 'E','Dr. John','C',100 UNION ALL
SELECT 'F','Brick','A',222 UNION ALL
SELECT 'G','Mortar','C',153 ;


With AccountHierarchy AS

(                                                                           --Root values have no parent
    SELECT
        Root.AcctId                                         AccountId
        , Root.Name                                         AccountName
        , Root.ParentId                                     ParentId
        , 1                                                 HierarchyLevel  
        , cast(Root.Acctid as varchar(4000))                IdHierarchy     --highest parent reads right to left as in id3.Acctid2.Acctid1
        , cast(replace(Root.Name,'.','') as varchar(4000))  NameHierarchy   --highest parent reads right to left as in name3.name2.name1 (replace '.' so name parse is easy in last step)
        , cast(Root.Acctid as varchar(4000))                HierarchySort   --reverse of above, read left to right name1.name2.name3 for sorting on reporting only
        , cast(Root.Name as varchar(4000))                  HierarchyLabel  --use for labels on reporting only, indents names under sorted hierarchy
        , Root.CustomerCount                                CustomerCount   

    FROM 
        tempdb.dbo.account Root

    WHERE
        Root.ParentID is null

    UNION ALL

    SELECT
        Recurse.Acctid                                      AccountId
        , Recurse.Name                                      AccountName
        , Recurse.ParentId                                  ParentId
        , Root.HierarchyLevel + 1                           HierarchyLevel  --next level in hierarchy
        , cast(cast(recurse.Acctid as varchar(40)) + '.' + Root.IdHierarchy as varchar(4000))   IdHierarchy --cast because in real system this is a uniqueidentifier type needs converting
        , cast(replace(recurse.Name,'.','') + '.' + Root.NameHierarchy as varchar(4000)) NameHierarchy  --replace '.' for parsing in last step, cast to make room for lots of sub levels down the hierarchy
        , cast(Root.AccountName + '.' + Recurse.Name as varchar(4000)) HierarchySort    
        , cast(space(root.HierarchyLevel * 4) + Recurse.Name as varchar(4000)) HierarchyLabel
        , Recurse.CustomerCount                             CustomerCount

    FROM
        tempdb.dbo.account Recurse INNER JOIN
        AccountHierarchy Root on Root.AccountId = Recurse.ParentId
)


SELECT
    hier.AccountId
    , Hier.AccountName
    , hier.ParentId
    , hier.HierarchyLevel
    , hier.IdHierarchy
    , hier.NameHierarchy
    , hier.HierarchyLabel
    , parsename(hier.IdHierarchy,1) Acct1Id
    , parsename(hier.NameHierarchy,1) Acct1Name     --This is why we stripped out '.' during recursion
    , parsename(hier.IdHierarchy,2) Acct2Id
    , parsename(hier.NameHierarchy,2) Acct2Name
    , parsename(hier.IdHierarchy,3) Acct3Id
    , parsename(hier.NameHierarchy,3) Acct3Name
    , parsename(hier.IdHierarchy,4) Acct4Id
    , parsename(hier.NameHierarchy,4) Acct4Name
    , hier.CustomerCount

    /* fantastic up to this point. Next block of code is what causes problem. 
        Logic of code is "sum of CustomerCount for this location and all branches below in this branch of hierarchy"
        In live environment, goes from taking 3 seconds to 4 minutes by adding this one calc */

    , (
        SELECT  
            sum(children.CustomerCount)
        FROM
            AccountHierarchy Children
        WHERE
            hier.IdHierarchy = right(children.IdHierarchy, (1 /*length of id field*/ * hier.HierarchyLevel) + hier.HierarchyLevel - 1 /*for periods inbetween ids*/)
            --"where this location's idhierarchy is within child idhierarchy"
            --previously tried a charindex(hier.IdHierarchy,children.IdHierarchy)>0, but that performed even worse
        ) TotalCustomerCount
FROM
    AccountHierarchy hier

ORDER BY
    hier.HierarchySort


drop table tempdb.dbo.Account

optimizing a CTE Hierarchy

0 Answers0