Blogs

SQL PASS Summit 2017: Day 1 Keynote Thoughts and Memories

SQL PASS Summit 2017: Day 1 Keynote Thoughts and Memories

on November 1, 2017 • 8 min read

Category: indexing

Whee! It’s the first day of the main SQL PASS Summit conference and I made it to the keynote early for the first time ever. The hype says we’re going to see some great presenters this morning.

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Locked Pages, Working Set, and Private Bytes

Locked Pages, Working Set, and Private Bytes

on October 19, 2017 • 2 min read

Category: sql-server

One of the great things about writing presentations is that it spurs you to “clean up” your definitions. When it comes to writing a slide about something, I ask myself, “Do I really know what that is?” I check my assumptions, and clarify how I think about something.

This week I was working with SQL Server memory settings, and I “cleaned up” my understanding of the following definitions.

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My Two Sessions at the SQL PASS Summit 2017

My Two Sessions at the SQL PASS Summit 2017

on October 12, 2017 • 3 min read

PASS Summit sessions have been scheduled, and I’m excited to be giving two sessions this year AND helping judge Speaker Idol!

I’m looking forward to teaching, learning a ton, and connecting with lots of people who love working with data.

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The Death of SQL Server Service Packs

The Death of SQL Server Service Packs

on October 6, 2017 • 8 min read

SQL Server Service Packs are going away, starting with SQL Server 2017. I talk about why I think this is a good thing, and discuss Cumulative Updates, Service Packs, and the process of updating SQL Server.

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IO Patterns for Index Seeks: There May be a Lot of Read Ahead Reads

IO Patterns for Index Seeks: There May be a Lot of Read Ahead Reads

on October 4, 2017 • 4 min read

I received a question recently asking about disk access patterns for index seeks in SQL Server. The question suggested that index seeks would have a random read pattern.

Is this necessarily the case?

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Love and Hate for SSMS

Love and Hate for SSMS

on September 29, 2017 • 15 min read

People have strong feelings about SQL Server Management Studio: they love it AND they hate it. In this week’s episode, I talk about why people have such conflicting feelings about SSMS, and how to work it all out.

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New Free Webcasts for November and December 2017

New Free Webcasts for November and December 2017

By Kendra Little on September 28, 2017 • 1 min read

I’ve Just Scheduled a Whole Batch o’ Free Webcasts!

Webcasts are held on Thursdays at 9 AM Pacific / noon Eastern / 4 pm UTC.

Here’s the upcoming slate of topics:

  • Oct 5 – RCSI and Snapshot Isolation
  • Oct 19 – Pressure Testing Memory
  • Oct 26 – What’s REALLY in That Index?
  • Nov 9 – Filtered Columnstore Indexes
  • Nov 16 – Defragging: Reorg or Rebuild?
  • Nov 30 – In-Memory Indexes & Isolation
  • Dec 7 – Indexing for Windowing Functions
  • Dec 14 – Serializable & Repeatable Read

I can’t wait to put together these presentations, and I hope to see you on Thursdays!

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