If i create an Indexed View (in Sql Server 2008), does this mean i copy all required the data from the source tables into a separate new table? Or are only some tiny pointers/indexes saved, to represent this view?
Yes, the data is copied and stored separately, so if you modify the underlying table, your indexed view will update automatically. This causes a lot of lock contention. Also the indexed view may grow larger than the underlying tables and become counterproductive.