Managing Statistics in SQL Server for DBAs (videos)
Want to learn more about managing statistics updates in SQL Server? Watch my 27 minute presentation on managing statistics.
Updating Statistics in SQL Server: Maintenance Questions & Answers
I’ve been asked a lot of questions about updating statistics in SQL Server over the years. And I’ve asked a lot of questions myself! Here’s a rundown of all the practical questions that I tend to get about how to maintain these in SQL Server.
Free Webcast! Updating Statistics in SQL Server: Questions and Answers
What are statistics? How often should you update them? Do you need a trace flag to make this easier? What are duplicate statistics, and do you need to drop them?
Join me for a live Hangout on Monday, April 18 at 8:30 AM Pacific / 11:30 AM Eastern to up your maintenance game!
Change Management Template for SQL Server DBAs and Developers
I learned to do Change Management from some really smart people. When I first became a DBA, I worked at a small software company where changes were released with increasing frequency over the years. Our team was really great at planning and deploying changes, because we constantly worked at improving.
New SSMS Features: Click + Drag and Click + Mouse Scroll
The best features are the ones that you use all the time. SQL Server 2016 Management Studio’s bringing improvements in navigating around execution plans.
Links and Notes from SQL Server Index Formulas, Huntington Beach
I gave a day long session, “SQL Server Index Formulas, Problems and Solutions” in Huntington Beach, CA on April 1. The class was a great group of students, and we had a lively discussion and lots of questions.
Here’s a topic we diagrammed in class, as well as links to extra resources.
Can I Force A Hinted Plan with Query Store in SQL Server 2016?
SQL Server 2016’s Query Store feature promises to be better than Plan Guides ever were. The Query Store lets you track query performance, collect execution plans, and force a specific plan if you notice that a query is sometimes fast, and sometimes slow.
Training Plan for Junior DBAs Learning SQL Server
You’re just getting started as a SQL Server Database Administrator – or you’re trying to get there.
Here’s a learning plan and links to free articles and scripts that will equip you to tackle the three most critical skills to for DBAs.
NO_PLAN and NO_INDEX: Breaking a Forced Query Store Plan
Whenever you’ve got a new feature, one of the first things to ask is, “What happens when I break it?”
Because we’re going to break stuff.
3 Tricks with STATISTICS IO and STATISTICS TIME in SQL Server
When you need to measure how long a query takes and how many resources it uses, STATISTICS TIME and STATISTICS IO are great tools for interactive testing in SQL Server. I use these settings constantly when tuning indexes and query.