DMV (Database Management View) and DMO (Database Management Objects) were added in 2005. There have been huge improvements in each new edition of SQL Server. It provides us a lot of useful information about SQL Server like – expensive queries, wait type, missing index…., and the list goes on and on… In this blog, I […]
SQL Server Logical Query Processing
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Recently, while reviewing one of the stored procedure performance, I suggested a couple of changes to a developer to improve the performance of the SP. One of the suggestions was to replace DISTINCT with GROUP BY. A few days later, he came back to me with a performance matrix to show that there was no […]
How to Check SQL Server View Utilization
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If you are working on SQL Server optimization delicately, you may get often queries that how to find if any index, table or view is being used in database or not. In recent past, we went live for one of the critical application. The developers decided to check through all the indexes utilization including View indexes […]
What is a Foreign Key & How many foreign keys can you have on a single table?
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Yesterday, I was attending a database design meeting. In the meeting, I was asked one of the questions – “How many foreign keys can you have on a single table?” Honestly, I had no clue about the limit. But, I must acknowledge that it was an excellent question to learn something new. Once the meeting […]
How SQL Compilation Can Prove the Server CPU
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It is relatively easy to spot CPU-bound system. But, the source of CPU pressure is not always easy to pinpoint. The CPU can be driven by many factors on the server such as; Memory pressure which is causing SQL Server to continually move data in and out of the memory. Disk latency Bad indexes Poorly […]
SQL Performance – Using Query Hint OPTION (FAST N)
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It is fun working with SQL/Application developer where you exchange a lot of technical thoughts to find the root of the issues. Recently, one of the developers optimized the OLTP system stored procedure by putting the query hint OPTION (FAST ‘N’). But, he was not sure enough about the drawback of the query hint. So, he […]
Who installed SQL Server?
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Recently, I was working with the team and got stuck up with SQL Server Installation information. We got an urgent requirement to patch the physical box from Windows team. As the server was not in production, so the server entry was missing. Since Windows team wanted to take action on it as soon as possible, […]
Capture SQL Server Reported Errors using Extended Events
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In my introduction to Extended Events blog, I mentioned that the xEvent is my favorite toy for performance troubleshooting. This blog may make you to start playing with it. In this tip, I will be discussing how you can find what caused SQL Server to write error in the Errorlog file. Problem: One of the clients reported that […]
Extended Event Packages
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I continue blogging on extended events. Today, I will discuss about the top level containers (Package) that gives access to one or more smaller items inside of extended Events Extended Event Packages Definition In the Extended Events Engine, Packages are registered inside the modules and contain the information about what Extended Events objects the module […]
Mapping SQL Trace to Extended Events
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Since I started actively participating in SQL community, I found it is very common that people will approach to seek help on their SQL related issues. I do love to help people because it is always a win and win situation for both of us. Recently, I had a phone conversation with one of the […]