title: Slow query operations on Azure database
body: <p>I have 1.2 million rows in Azure data table. The following command:</p>
  
  <pre><code>DELETE FROM _PPL_DETAIL WHERE RunId &lt;&gt; 229 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>is painfully slow.
  There is an index on RunId.
  I am deleting most of the data.
  229 is a small number of records.
  It has been running for an hour now
  Should it take this long?
  I am pretty sure it will finish.
  Is there anything I can do to make operations like this faster?
  The database does have a PK, although it is a dummy PK (not used).  I already saw that as an optimization need to help this problem, but it still takes way too long (SQL Server treats a table without a PK differently -- much less efficient).  It is still taking 1+ hour.</p>