Identity column jumps indefinitely

Guys,

Iam new to this forum, Hello to all...
Iam facing a problem in my application. Have recently noticed that my primary key column which is an " identity " with increment 1 being set.
But now iam noticing a various jumps in the number instead of 1. The numbers in the jump is not consistent.
Has anyone faced this kinda problem.
???many people have seen this situation

those who are using identity columns only to provide identity (uniqueness) do not see a problem at all

those who are concerned about gaps in the sequence of numbers, as representing a problem for their application, should re-design their application so that they don't rely on identity columns|||I agree with your comments not to use the identity on the application.
But in my case, i dont delete the records, it automatically jumps the numbers.
say for example a record is created with number 301 today morning
during afternoon there is another new record with number 899.
But why this jump is happening. Iam curious to know about it...|||yes, i'm curious too

when it gets close to the 2-billion number, you may want to have a look at it again

:)|||This is old info, off the top of head, but as I remember it:

Basically, the Identity feature 'grabs' a block of numbers, and doles them out. Not sure what the default is. Assume 100 (1-100). When the first insert happens, it gives out '1'.
For performance, the server grabs them in bunches, and saves the next, (101), so it doesn't need to keep getting locks for each insert. If the db server goes down, the next record will get '101'.

Don't use identity for consecutive numbering.

Jay Grubb
Technical Consultant
OpenLink Software
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