SQL Server Performance Blog

SQLAndy and the Idera ACE program

admin — Sun, 08 May 2011 09:29:29 PDT

Excerpt posted by Andy Warren’s blog: Idera announced their ACE Program on Monday, a new effort to do more community outreach in a way a bit different than others have done it so far. Rather than the traditional evangelist/vendor rep model for participating in events, this program will have six members of the community that [...]

Understanding SQL Server Statistics

Donabel — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 04:30:53 PDT

Donabel Santos (twitter (@sqlbelle) | blog) – April 25, 2011 “Statistics provides tools that you need in order to react intelligently to information you hear or read” – David Lane, 2003 If there’s an upcoming election and you are running for office and getting ready to go from town to town city to city with [...]

CXPacket What?

admin — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 12:18:08 PDT

By Mitch Bottel, April 19, 2011 Ever receive a late afternoon call just as you are unplugging your laptop to head home from an angry developer complaining about latency in his application trying to return data from your server? I know, I know, your first thought is “why did I answer that phone?” He claims [...]

Ensure Proper SQL Server Connection Pooling

Michael K. Campbell — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 06:47:01 PDT

By: Michael K. Campbell, April 11, 2011 Coming to SQL Server from both a database developer and DBA background, I maintain that while tuning SQL Server’s ability to handle your application workloads is a viable way to increase performance, another way to bolster performance is to consider architectural and coding practices within your applications. This [...]

Tips for Optimizing XML in SQL Server

Donabel — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:12:27 PDT

Donabel Santos (twitter (@sqlbelle) | blog) – March 29, 2011 I’ve worked on a project that used XML heavily inside SQL Server. We really utilized SQL Server’s XML support almost to the full extent, but with some repercussions. As we did our load testing, performance did degrade and we had to step back and adjust [...]

Win a FREE Trip on the Alaska SQLCruise!

admin — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 08:23:12 PDT

Idera is giving away a free trip for two on the Alaska SQLcruise (including airfare)! Here are the details on how you can win! SOLVED A BEASTLY PROBLEM THAT WAS PLAGUING YOUR SERVERS FOR DAYS, WEEKS OR MONTHS? DID ANYONE AROUND YOU REALIZE JUST HOW COOL AND AWESOME YOUR SOLUTION WAS? NOW’S YOUR CHANCE [...]

Quickly Validating SQL Server Configuration Settings

Michael K. Campbell — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:32:43 PDT

By Michael Campbell, March 14, 2011 Performance tuning tips come in many different shapes and sizes. Some represent technical ‘deep-dives’ into aspects of how SQL Server’s storage engine or query process tackles certain tasks – while others represent simple (or even complex) best practices for avoiding certain behaviors or problems. The key thing that all [...]

Comparing Simple Efficiencies: T-SQL UDF vs SQCLR UDF for Splitting Strings

Donabel — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 08:27:32 PST

Donabel Santos (twitter (@sqlbelle) | blog) – February 21, 2011 Recap of T-SQL vs SQLCLR (pseudo) Debate There have been numerous posts about benefits of using T-SQL vs SQLCLR, and vice versa. And we all know the mantra – T-SQL for data access, SQLCLR for anything that is computationally intense tasks. SQL Server is a [...]

Consider Your Collations Carefully, Or Pay Later

Donabel — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 14:05:50 PST

Donabel Santos (twitter (@sqlbelle) | blog) – February 09, 2011 When first installing SQL Server, many developers and DBAs new to SQL Server may have the temptation to click Next, Next, Next on the installation wizard. However, it is of utmost importance to pay close attention, and be conscious, of options that you choose. We [...]

Removing Unused Indexes

Michael K. Campbell — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 11:19:11 PST

A common sentiment that prevails in many SQL Server environments or shops is that when query performance begins to lag, it’s time to add new indexes. In many ways the existence of this sentiment helps underscore just how powerful indexes are when it comes to performance. And while it’s true that a core performance tuning consideration is the need to properly identify and add indexes, it’s important to remember that the addition of every index comes with a degree of overhead required to keep that index properly updated during UPDATE, INSERT, and DELETE operations. In other words, while adding properly defined indexes will typically provide substantial performance benefits, the existence of too many indexes can come with a penalty. Likewise, given the overhead associated with maintaining indexes, a general rule of thumb is that non-used indexes should be dropped if they’re truly not needed. (Or, if they’re needed only cyclically – say at the end of each quarter for special reports – it can even be a good idea to drop add them prior to special execution requirements and then drop them when done.)