Q13: What is the difference between a Standard View and a Materialized View?
- Standard View: A virtual table backed by a saved SQL query definition. It stores no physical data on disk. When queried, the underlying SQL expression executes in real time.
- Materialized View: A persisted table structure containing physical query execution results. It dramatically speeds up complex analytical aggregation workloads, but requires periodic manual or triggered refresh cycles (
REFRESH MATERIALIZED VIEW) to stay in sync with base table changes.
Key Takeaways
- Standard views act as virtual queries; Materialized Views persist physical data records on disk.
- Materialized Views require explicit refresh management to balance query performance against data freshness.