Last week, I mentioned a feature in SQL Server, and now in Azure SQL Database, called Memory-Optimized Table-Valued Parameters, which makes use of In-Memory OLTP structures to work around a dependency on tempdb, and thereby…
November brings me back to my regular weekly posting schedule. I attended PASS Summit 2016 last week, and saw a lot of great sessions. Aside from the new stuff, what I also noticed is how…
I’ve been toying with the idea of automating a set of diagnostic scripts that I run on customer sites, when doing my checkup. It mirrors the automation that a lot of consulting shops do, but…
During a recent engagement, I was tasked with making a query faster. Since I signed an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), I can’t go into detail, but it made extensive use of the STDistance() function of the…
Some time ago, I added a free resource to this site to help DBAs know how much max server memory should be assigned to SQL Server, based on an algorithm by Jonathan Kehayias. On 19…
This week is a shorter post than last week, but it answers a very important question: Should I move my on-premises database to Azure SQL Database? The short answer is: It depends. Firstly, why do…
During a recent engagement with a client transferring large files from on premises to Azure Storage, we discovered that files over a certain size are automatically throttled, causing file uploads to take much longer than expected.…
What does the expiration date mean on SQL Server database backups? In SQL Server Management Studio, there’s an option in the Back Up Database wizard which explicitly provides an option for “Backup set will expire”.…
Update: Paul Randal told me I had made a mistake in my post. The correction is below. On Wednesday last week, Kenneth Fisher (b | t) asked: “Is DBCC SHRINKFILE (filename, EMPTYFILE) fully logged?” Is…
Last week, I wrote about what should have been a fast system but was performing very poorly, weighing heavily on tempdb I/O performance. Our original changes did not make much of a difference, but now…
This week I am continuing with the simple survey series. Today my question is, do you prefer using a dark or light background when writing code? I like a light background with dark text (usually…
This is my second survey for the month of December. Last week I asked about join predicate order. This week, it’s a simple question: Do you prefer tabs or spaces to indent your T-SQL, and…
It’s a quiet month as we look forward to 2016, so I’m asking a series of survey questions for the next few posts. My first one is about the order of join predicates. When joining…
Your production environment needs Date and Number tables, to help you Get Stuff Done in sets instead of RBAR*. Doug Lane has a video on Why You Simply Must Have a Date Table. I really…
A customer is running in a SQL Server 2000 environment, 32-bit AWE mode, on 64-bit Windows 2003 R2. The server has 16GB of RAM and 8 logical CPU cores. It’s running under VMWare. Storage is…