We have a large table in the form:

create table dbo.Data
(
  Date date not null,
  Type int not null,
  Value nvarchar(50) null,
  primary key clustered(Date, Type)
);

create unique nonclustered index IX_Data on dbo.Data(Type, Date);

Among other queries we often need a snapshot of data per each Type for a latest Date available:

select
  max(Date) Date,
  Type
from
  dbo.Data
group by
  Type

We have found that the above select does not run well on our data set. In fact dbo.Data grows with time, while snapshot we need stays more or less of the same size. The best solution to such query is to precalculate it. One way would be to create an indexed view, but SQL Server does not support max() aggregate in indexed views.

So, we have decided to add additional bit field dbo.Data.Last indicating that a row belongs to a last date snapshot, and to create filtered index to access that snapshot:

create table dbo.Data
(
  Date date not null,
  Type int not null,
  Value nvarchar(50) null,
  Last bit not null default 0,
  primary key clustered(Date, Type)
);

create unique nonclustered index IX_Data on dbo.Data(Type, Date);

create unique nonclustered index IX_Data_Last on dbo.Data(Type)
include(Date)
where Last = 1;

One way to support Last indicator is to create a trigger that will adjust Last value:

create trigger dbo.Data_Update on dbo.Data
after insert,delete,update
as
begin
  if (trigger_nestlevel(@@procid) < 2)
  begin
    set nocount on;

    with D as
    (
      select Date, Type from deleted
      union
      select Date, Type from inserted
    ),
    U as
    (
      select
        V.Date, V.Type
      from
        D
        inner join
        dbo.Data V
        on
          (V.Last = 1) and
          (V.Type = D.Type)
      union
      select
        max(V.Date) Date,
        V.Type
      from
        D
        inner join
        dbo.Data V
        on
          V.Type = D.Type
      group by
        V.Type
    ),
    V as
    (
      select
        rank() over(partition by V.Type order by V.Date desc) Row,
        V.*
      from
        dbo.Data V
        inner join
        U
        on
          (V.Date = U.Date) and
          (V.Type = U.Type)
    )
    update V set Last = 1 - cast(Row - 1 as bit);
  end;
end;

With Last indicator in action, our original query has been transformed to:

select Date, Type from dbo.Data where Last = 1

Execution plan shows that a new filtered index IX_Data_Last is used. Execution speed has increased considerably. As our actual table contains other bit fields, so Last indicator did not increase the table size, as SQL Server packs each 8 bit fields in one byte.