sys.vector_indexes (Transact-SQL)

Applies to: SQL Server 2025 (17.x) Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance SQL database in Microsoft Fabric

Contains a row per vector index.

Column name	Data type	Description
<inherited columns>		Inherits columns from sys.indexes.
vector_index_type	varchar(20)	Type of vector index (DiskANN only for now)
distance_metric	varchar(20)	Metric used to create the vector index
build_parameters	nvarchar(max)	Internal usage only

Permissions

The visibility of the metadata in catalog views is limited to securables that a user either owns, or on which the user was granted some permission. For more information, see Metadata Visibility Configuration.

Remarks

• Vector indexes are generally available in Azure SQL Database, SQL database in Fabric, and Azure SQL Managed Instance in the Always up to date update policy.
• Vector indexes are preview features in SQL Server 2025 and Azure SQL Managed Instance in the SQL Server 2025 update policy.

Examples

The following example returns all indexes for the table [dbo].[wikipedia_articles_embeddings] used in the DiskANN sample available in the GitHub sample repo.

SELECT
  object_id,
  index_id,
  vector_index_type,
  distance_metric,
  build_parameters
FROM
  sys.vector_indexes AS vi
WHERE
  object_id = OBJECT_ID('[dbo].[wikipedia_articles_embeddings]')

Related content

• CREATE VECTOR INDEX (Transact-SQL)
• sys.dm_db_vector_indexes (Transact-SQL)