Hash joins and hash teams in Microsoft SQL Server

Summary: MS SQL Server uses hash-based algorithms for joins, semi-joins, grouping, and set operations, unifying many techniques into a single implementation. It introduces hash teams, a previously vaguely described technique that adds ordering-like benefits to hash processing, and discusses memory management in bushy plans with multiple hash and sort operators, plus performance on two typical queries. (summarized by gpt-5-nano on Feb 09 2026)

Paper ID: 8670
Venue: VLDB
Year: 1998
Pagerank: 9.7034998e-05
Overall Rank: 1,809 | 87.60%
DOI: -

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

BibTeX Citation

@article{graefe_vldb98,
        title = {{Hash joins and hash teams in Microsoft SQL Server}},
        author = {Graefe, Goetz and Bunker, Ross and Cooper, Shaun},
        journal = {PVLDB},
        series = {{VLDB} '98},
        year = {1998}
}

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 12 of 12 citing papers.

Rank	Citing Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
204	Cache Conscious Indexing for Decision-Support in Main Memory	1999	VLDB	0.00025342994
360	Design and Evaluation of Main Memory Hash Join Algorithms for Multi-core CPUs	2011	SIGMOD	0.00020182846
1,093	Maximizing the Output Rate of Multi-Way Join Queries over Streaming Information Sources	2003	VLDB	0.00012218435
1,431	Towards Scalable Dataframe Systems	2020	VLDB	0.00010807221
1,740	Adopting Worst-Case Optimal Joins in Relational Database Systems	2020	VLDB	9.875587e-05
2,250	Cache-Efficient Aggregation: Hashing Is Sorting	2015	SIGMOD	8.8694486e-05
2,952	The Value of Merge-Join and Hash-Join in SQL Server	1999	VLDB	7.9255489e-05
2,997	Adapting to Source Properties in Processing Data Integration Queries	2004	SIGMOD	7.8745158e-05
5,443	Generalized Hash Teams for Join and Group-by	1999	VLDB	6.2177595e-05
5,781	Free Join: Unifying Worst-Case Optimal and Traditional Joins	2023	SIGMOD	6.0910397e-05
7,800	Design Trade-offs for a Robust Dynamic Hybrid Hash Join	2022	VLDB	5.5420279e-05
11,200	High-Performance Query Processing with NVMe Arrays: Spilling without Killing Performance	2024	SIGMOD	5.093636e-05

Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 10 of 10 cited papers.

Citations counted here include only citations to other VLDB/SIGMOD/CIDR/PODS papers in this database.

Rank	Cited Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
1	Access Path Selection in a Relational Database Management System	1979	SIGMOD	0.0024089429
7	Implementation Techniques For Main Memory Database Systems	1984	SIGMOD	0.00083340894
80	Hashing Methods and Relational Algebra Operations	1984	VLDB	0.00036536643
152	Multiprocessor Hash-Based Join Algorithms	1985	VLDB	0.00029038365
336	THE 5 MINUTE RULE FOR TRADING MEMORY FOR DISC ACCESSES and THE 10 BYTE RULE FOR TRADING MEMORY FOR CPU TIME	1987	SIGMOD	0.00020845451
652	An Overview of The System Software of A Parallel Relational Database Machine GRACE	1986	VLDB	0.00015304915
801	Query Execution Techniques for Caching Expensive Methods	1996	SIGMOD	0.00013909408
904	Tradeoffs in Processing Complex Join Queries via Hashing in Multiprocessor Database Machines	1990	VLDB	0.00013319798
1,779	An Adaptive Hash Join Algorithm for Multiuser Environments	1990	VLDB	9.7764427e-05
2,230	The Effect of Bucket Size Tuning in the Dynamic Hybrid GRACE Hash Join Method	1989	VLDB	8.9026958e-05

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#	Overall Rank	Paper	Year	Venue
1	6,207	The 3D Hash Join: Building On Non-Unique Join Attributes	2022	CIDR
2	5,663	Early Hash Join: A Configurable Algorithm for the Efficient and Early Production of Join Results	2005	VLDB
3	1,779	An Adaptive Hash Join Algorithm for Multiuser Environments	1990	VLDB
4	80	Hashing Methods and Relational Algebra Operations	1984	VLDB
5	3,011	Design and Evaluation of Parallel Pipelined Join Algorithms	1987	SIGMOD
6	2,470	Hash-Based Join Algorithms for Multiprocessor Computers with Shared Memory	1990	VLDB
7	209	Sort vs. Hash Revisited: Fast Join Implementation on Modern Multi-Core CPUs	2009	VLDB
8	904	Tradeoffs in Processing Complex Join Queries via Hashing in Multiprocessor Database Machines	1990	VLDB
9	360	Design and Evaluation of Main Memory Hash Join Algorithms for Multi-core CPUs	2011	SIGMOD
10	5,443	Generalized Hash Teams for Join and Group-by	1999	VLDB