Optimizing max function

I have a stored procedure that needs to determine the max value of a column at insert time. I have tried creating an non-unique index on this column (and using a hint to force the optimizer to use it) but this only results in a full index scan. With over 500,000 rows in the table, this results in 2 sec response time. I need to tweek this to under 1 sec.

Is there some way to optimize a query containing the max() function?

Thanks.

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Mark Wagoner
To reply, remove no.spam from my e-mail address Received on Tue Jul 20 1999 - 07:55:24 CDT