Blogs

Adaptive Queries in Standard Edition: Interleaved Exec for Multi-Statement TVFs

It’s tough to keep track of which features work in each version of SQL Server, and which Editions support them.

My memory told me that the new Adaptive Joins feature in SQL Server 2017 was Enterprise Edition only…  and that’s correct, but I didn’t realize that the fancy new feature to make Multi-Statement TVFs smarter has much wider licensing.

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Remembering Robert Davis, aka @SQLSoldier

I woke up early on Tuesday with a hundred things to do and plenty of energy to match my task list. By noon, I’d made a loaf of bread, helped a friend solve a tech mystery, and had various professional adventures. Then I opened Twitter and saw the news that Robert Davis passed away. I haven’t really gotten much done in the hours since, except think about Robert. And cry a bit.

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Sys.dm_db_tuning_recommendations Makes Suggestions if Automatic Tuning is Not Enabled

I naturally think about the new sys.dm_db_tuning_recommendations DMV when I’m working with the new Automatic Tuning feature in SQL Server 2017.

But I came across a post by Grant Fritchey recently, in which he remarked in the conclusion…

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Auto-Tuning: Automatic Plan Correction is Cleared on Restart

The new Enterprise Automatic Tuning feature in SQL Server 2017 may sound intimidating at first – one question I get a lot lately is whether or not there’s a future for DBAs. Will Auto-Tune mean we don’t need any more human tuning?

Well, not anytime super soon.

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Partitioned Tables: Rolling/Rotating/Round-Robining Partitions

I recently received a terrific question about options for “rotating” table partitions.

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Why Is My Function Missing From sys.dm_exec_query_stats and Query Store?

I just spent 90 minutes of my life figuring out a detail about sys.dm_exec_query_stats which I’m pretty sure I figured out five years ago, but didn’t write a blog post about.

Time to write a blog post, so I can save time when I go searching for this in a couple years.

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Adding a Downloadable Calendar Event File to Wordpress without a Plugin

Let’s say you’ll be doing an event soon – say a Facebook Live event– and you want to create a calendar reminder for folks to download. Lots of us live and die by calendar invites, so this can be helpful to get people to attend.

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New Course: Why Table Partitioning Does Not Speed Up Query Performance – With One Exception

Table Partitioning is Tricky Business

In this new course you will learn why SQL Server’s table partitioning feature won’t make your queries against disk-based rowstore indexes faster– and may even make them slower.

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The Case of MAX() Requiring an Index Scan, While TOP(1)/ORDER BY DESC Does Not

Most of the time in SQL Server, the MAX() function and a TOP(1) ORDER BY DESC will behave very similarly.

If you give them a rowstore index leading on the column in question, they’re generally smart enough to go to the correct end of the index, and – BOOP! – just pluck out the data you need without doing a big scan.

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SQL Server 2026: BAGI Edition (#TSQL2SDAY 100!)

It’s T-SQL Tuesday’s 8 year birthday (or close enough), and Adam Machanic has challenged us with the question: what will the world be like when T-SQLTuesday turns 16?

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