Should I Get Certified as a DBA? (Dear SQL DBA Episode 41)
Find out if getting certified will help you land an entry level DBA job. If you do want to get certified, get Kendra’s tips on preparing for the exam in this 17 minute episode.
Checking for the Existence of Global Temp Table in TSQL
Every now and again, I need use a global temporary table for some testing or demo code.
Each time I do, I stumble a little bit when it comes to checking for the existence of the global temp table, in order to make my code re-runnable.
Use Report View in Perfmon to Compare Database Counters (free video)
Sometimes you need to compare lots of counters at once - for example, counters that report at the database level. This can be frustrating in “Line” view, but the “Report” view in perfmon makes life much simpler.
How Does a DBA Build Confidence After Making Mistakes? (Dear SQL DBA Episode 40)
Ever had a database change go horribly wrong? It can feel awful in the moment, then eat away at your confidence for days afterward.
In this 20 minute episode, I give you practical steps that help you cope with change over the course of your DBA career.
Error 1204: When SQL Server Runs Out of Locks
I recently did a Dear SQL DBA episode answering a question about lock timeouts and memory in SQL Server. I really enjoyed the episode, and thought it would be fun to follow up and show what it looks like if SQL Server doesn’t have enough memory to allocate locks.
Run perfmon.exe /sys to Remember Your Counters in Windows Perfmon (free video)
The problem: by default, the Performance Monitor application in Windows doesn’t remember which counters you like to use.
This can mean a lot of clicking every single time you open perfmon.
Are Bad Statistics Making My Query Slow? (Dear SQL DBA Episode 39)
An important query is suddenly slow. Is it because statistics are out of date? This is tricky to figure out, and updating statistics right away can make troubleshooting even harder. Learn how to use query execution plans to get to the heart of the question and find out if stats are really your problem, or if it’s something else. In this 35 minute episode: 00:39 SQL Server 2017 Announced 01:10 New video from Microsoft’s Joe Sack demonstrating Adaptive Query Processing 03:05 This week’s question: Are bad stats making my query slow?
Trace Flag 4199: No Per-Session Override if You Enable it Globally
You can enable and disable trace flags either globally or per-session in SQL Server.
This makes it seem like perhaps if you enable optimization trace flag 4199 globally for all sessions, you might be able to disable it per-session.
But that’s NOT how it works.
Index Maintenance and Performance (Dear SQL DBA Episode 38)
They made their index maintenance job smarter, and their queries got slower in production afterward. Could the index maintenance have harmed performance?
Will Optimize for Adhoc Workloads Save Memory?
A while back, I got a question about enabling SQL Server’s ‘Optimize for Adhoc Workloads’ setting. The gist of the question was whether or not enabling this setting might free up extra memory on their SQL Server instance.