--- title: 1B row vector search in less than a second with Azure... description: Microsoft's Azure SQL product management and engineering leads discuss the general availability of native vector index support in Azure SQL Database... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/1b-row-vector-search-in-less-than-a-second-with-azure-sql-database-hyperscale-data-exposed-czcuqdhdp twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: 1B row vector search in less than a second with Azure SQL Database Hyperscale | Data Exposed | daily.dev og:description: Microsoft's Azure SQL product management and engineering leads discuss the general availability of native vector index support in Azure SQL Database... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/1b-row-vector-search-in-less-than-a-second-with-azure-sql-database-hyperscale-data-exposed-czcuqdhdp og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/cZCUqDHDp.png og:image:alt: 1B row vector search in less than a second with Azure SQL Database Hyperscale | Data Exposed og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # 1B row vector search in less than a second with Azure SQL Database Hyperscale | Data Exposed **[Microsoft Developer](https://daily.dev/sources/microsoftdeveloper)** · 12 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Microsoft's Azure SQL product management and engineering leads discuss the general availability of native vector index support in Azure SQL Database Hyperscale, built on the DiskANN approximate nearest neighbor algorithm (originally from Microsoft Research, published at NeurIPS 2019, and already powering Bing, Copilot, and Azure AI Search). The conversation covers why exact search doesn't scale past millions of rows, how DiskANN combines SSD-backed storage with approximate search, iterator filtering that lets vector search run alongside relational filters and joins, full DML support (insert/update/delete) with asynchronous index updates, and a query optimizer that automatically picks between exact and approximate search. A demo shows vector search completing in milliseconds across a table with one billion rows. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What algorithm does Azure SQL use for vector indexing and why is it called DiskANN? Azure SQL's native vector index uses DiskANN, an approximate nearest neighbor algorithm developed by Microsoft Research and published at NeurIPS in 2019. The name reflects two design choices: it keeps part of the index on SSD disk rather than fully in memory, and it performs approximate rather than exact nearest neighbor search. The same algorithm already powers vector search in Bing, Microsoft Copilot, and Azure AI Search. _Teams evaluating vector search backends can track engine internals like DiskANN on daily.dev._ ### Does Azure SQL vector search support filtering and joins with other relational data? Yes, Azure SQL vector search supports combining vector similarity queries with relational filters and joins in the same query, using a technique called iterator filtering. Instead of retrieving the top matches and filtering afterward, the engine filters while walking the vector index graph, so results satisfy both the similarity ranking and relational predicates like date, category, author, or access permissions. _Developers designing hybrid search queries can follow database engine updates like this on daily.dev._ ### Can I insert, update, and delete rows in a table that has a vector index in Azure SQL? Yes, Azure SQL fully supports DML operations (insert, update, delete) on tables with a vector index, and the index updates asynchronously in the background. After an insert the new row appears in subsequent vector searches once the index catches up, and after an update or delete the old vector values are removed from search results, with progress trackable while the index resyncs. _Anyone building apps on live, changing vector data can keep tabs on database capabilities via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [DiskANN Vector Index and Vector Search Are Now Generally Available in Azure SQL](https://daily.dev/posts/diskann-vector-index-and-vector-search-are-now-generally-available-in-azure-sql-osouki4it) · DevBlogs · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Vector Index DiskANN Embeddings for AI Solutions](https://daily.dev/posts/vector-index-diskann-embeddings-for-ai-solutions-ghudmc57k) · DevBlogs · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#database](https://daily.dev/tags/database), [#azure](https://daily.dev/tags/azure), [#sql](https://daily.dev/tags/sql), [#vector-search](https://daily.dev/tags/vector-search) [View this post on 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