When I was a DBA responsible for 40 to 50 SQL Server instances, I didn’t have many third-party tools to help me do my job. I remember that I was able to buy a tool to compress database backups before that functionality was built into SQL Server. I also had a handful of licenses for … Read more
Out-of-control tempdb growth must be managed to keep the server running. Monica Rathbun gives her strategy to handle unexpected tempdb growth. … Read more
In this article of the series, Pamela Mooney explains the architecture of SQL Server under the hood, including some query anti-patterns to avoid.… Read more
SQL Server triggers are another tool in your DBA or Dev toolbox. Edward Pollack explains what can go wrong with triggers and how to correct those issues.… Read more
When inserting rows into a heap, SQL Server must sometimes update the PFS page which can PFS contention and affect performance. In this article, Uwe Ricken demonstrates how to measure PFS contention.… Read more
I was once a database administrator in charge of several SQL Servers hosting the databases of vendor apps. Right after taking the job, I began looking at things like backups and security. I was quite shocked to find that one of the most important SQL Servers in the firm had a blank sa password. I … Read more
Comparing current performance to baselines helps DBAs know when there’s a problem. In this article, Pamela Mooney describes how to measure the physical resources drive space, latency, memory, and CPU.… Read more
Securing data is not always easy to do, but it should be the top responsibility for database administrators. From protecting the physical servers to preventing copies of backups files from getting into the wrong hands, there is a lot to consider. In this article, Pamela Mooney covers what DBAs need to think about when securing their organisation’s data.… Read more
Well tuned storage is essential for SQL Server performance. In this article, Robert Sheldon explains the metrics that are important to watch. … Read more
In this article, Edward Pollack describes some of the issues when querying against remote data sources. He covers remote SQL Servers and also connecting to a PostgreSQL database.… Read more
Computed columns may be the cause of hard to track down performance issues. In this article, Robert Sheldon reviews the issues and some ways to get around them.… Read more
All queries run fast against columnstore indexes, right? In this article, Edward Pollack demonstrates some query patterns that don’t perform well and how to get around the issues.… Read more
In this article of this series, Edward Pollack demonstrates the maintenance of columnstore indexes. He also takes a look at nonclustered columnstore and memory-optimized columnstore indexes.… Read more
In the second article of this series, Edward Pollack demonstrates some ways to design and populate a columnstore index to get even better performance. … Read more
Table variables can cause performance issues with joins when they contain a large number of rows. In SQL Server 2019, Microsoft has improved how the optimizer works with table variables which can improve performance without making changes to your code. In this article, Greg Larsen explains how this feature works and if it really does make a difference.… Read more
Most advice you see online about heaps is to avoid them. In this article, Uwe Ricken describes the basics of heaps so that you can determine when heaps are the best choice. … Read more
Microsoft introduced Columnstore with SQL Server 2012 and have improved the feature in every version since then. You may be wondering why they are different than traditional indexes and how they work. In this series, Edward Pollack explains the architecture of Columnstore indexes. In future articles in the series, he will describe best practices for Columnstore.… Read more
This marks the third year that Redgate have launched a survey to better understand how organisations monitor their databases. This year, 971 database professionals from around the world responded. Here are some of the key insights from the survey: Estates are growing more than ever Companies who reported over 1,000 SQL Server instances grew 9% … Read more
When the optimizer doesn’t estimate the correct amount of memory for a query, either memory is wasted that could be used for other processes or some operations will spill to disk. Microsoft has added Memory Grant Feedback to help overcome this issue. In this article, Greg Larsen explains what you need to know about this new feature. … Read more