You need to reconfigured a solution to minimize the amount of server resource used when users access Report1. What should you recommend?

A well-designed database function, particularly an inline table-valued function (ITVF), can encapsulate optimized data retrieval and transformation logic from View1. By using such a function, the database server's query optimizer can often produce a highly efficient execution plan, allowing precise filtering and aggregation directly on the database, thereby significantly reducing the dataset size and processing load before data reaches Report1.

While stored procedures are generally efficient due to compilation and plan caching, functions (especially ITVFs) can offer greater composability within a larger query, allowing the optimizer to integrate their logic more directly and potentially yield a more efficient overall execution plan than calling a separate stored procedure in certain reporting contexts.

Creating a distributed partitioned view is a database architectural strategy for horizontal scaling and managing very large datasets across multiple servers, which addresses scalability rather than directly minimizing immediate server resources consumed by a specific report querying a single view.

Indexed views significantly improve read performance by pre-computing and storing results, but they incur maintenance overhead for DML operations on the underlying base tables, which can negate performance benefits if the data in View1 changes frequently, or they may not be suitable if the report's query involves unsupported operations.