Constraints in SQL Server are predefined rules that you can enforce on single or multiple columns. These constraints help maintain the integrity, reliability and accuracy of values stored in these columns. You can create constraints using CREATE TABLE…
SQL JOIN is a clause that is used to combine multiple tables and retrieve data based on a common field in relational databases. Database professionals use normalizations for ensuring and improving data integrity. In the various normalization forms, data…
Brent Ozar, Microsoft Certified Master recently discussed parallelism in SQL Server, specifically the wait types CXPACKET and CXCONSUMER in his final installment of Quest’s Database Training Days Fall Series. In his usual humorous and accessible…
SQL Server execution plans are a gateway for query optimizer and query executions for database professionals. They reveal query processing and involved phases such as affected tables, indexes, statistics, types of joins, the number of affected rows, query…
Database monitoring is the process of collecting and using performance metrics so your database can fully support your applications by avoiding slowdowns and responding immediately to queries. Database professionals who know the right metrics and track…
As part of Quest’s Database Training Days Fall Series, Brent Ozar, Microsoft Certified Master recently presented a tutorial on “Avoiding Deadlocks with Query Tuning.” The program focused on the three concurrency issues that occur in SQL Server,…
The availability, accessibility and performance of data are vital to business success. Performance tuning and SQL query optimization are tricky, but necessary practices for database professionals. They require looking at various collections of data using…
As anyone who manages databases knows all too well, SQL Server performance tuning is a critical function to ensuring optimal performance. With performance dependent upon various factors such as memory, configuration, query design and resource usage, isolating…
In SQL Server, the buffer cache is the memory that allows you to query frequently accessed data quickly. When data is written to or read from a SQL Server database, the buffer manager copies it into the buffer cache (aka the buffer pool). When it’s full…
A SQL Server execution plan is useful for investigating performance issues with your queries. Database professionals often receive trouble tickets or user complaints that queries are running slowly. Query results that used to take two or three minutes…
Database professionals are routinely confronted with database performance issues like improper indexing and poorly written code in production SQL instances. Suppose you updated a transaction and SQL Server reported the following deadlock message. For…
In relational databases, we create tables to store data in various formats. SQL Server stores data in a row and column format which holds a value associated with each data type. When we design SQL tables, we define data types such as integer, float, decimal…
In a previous article, we explored SQL Server index requirements and performance considerations. When it comes to database performance, performance tuning is without question, one of the most important and complex functions. It consists of many different…
SQL Server indexes are used to help retrieve data quicker and reduce bottlenecks impacting critical resources. Indexes on a database table serve as a performance optimization technique. You may wonder – how do indexes increase query performance? Are there…
If anyone had any doubts that a panel discussion where Brent Ozar and Pinal Dave would be answering attendees’ SQL Server performance questions would be a success, those were quickly dispelled during the blockbuster Ask the Experts session Quest hosted…
Why is SQL performance tuning so important to database management?
Because it can save you money big time. Bear with me and you’ll see how.
Most database professionals spend…
It’s easy to start tinkering with the gears of SQL query optimization. You open up SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), monitor wait time, review the execution plan, gather object information and begin optimizing SQL until you’re running a finely…
Foglight SQL Performance Investigator (PI) is a powerful workload analysis tool set for database professionals, which brings deep visibility into database performance. It comes with unique features such as historical multi-dimensional analysis…
With the pressures they face every day, database administrators and developers sometimes need a friendly voice of encouragement – someone who understands their struggles and can speak their…
Brent Ozar knows all about going fast – he races cars and he revs up SQL Servers with breathtaking performance results daily. In his recent webcast “How to Measure SQL Server,” for Quest’s Database Training Days series, Brent reminded…
According to Microsoft SQL Master, Brent Ozar, he’s made some terrible database performance tuning decisions throughout his career. Luckily for us, we can benefit from his mistakes and don’t have to figure everything out on our own. He’s shared his hard…
We all get excited when our cell phone plan includes so called “Unlimited Data.” But, you know what happens if we push your luck. That’s right; we start to experience performance issues and get tossed into the dreaded 2G zone!
A similar…
