Sql-Server

Category: sql-server

When Were Statistics Last Updated for a Heap?

When Were Statistics Last Updated for a Heap?

on February 16, 2018

I got a question last week from a very smart fellow:

How can I tell when statistics were last updated for a heap?

Before I could email him back, I soon got another email in which he answered his own question.

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Does a Clustered Index Give a Default Ordering?

Does a Clustered Index Give a Default Ordering?

By Kendra Little on February 2, 2018

I recently got a great question: if I order by a column where all rows in that column have the same value, will SQL Server then order the results by the clustered index key?

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Watch my live session: When Partitioning Indexes Hurts Performance  (and How to Fix It)

Watch my live session: When Partitioning Indexes Hurts Performance (and How to Fix It)

on January 25, 2018

I’m very that my session on table partitioning from the 2017 SQL PASS Summit is being featured as one of the “Best of Summit” videos.

I had a terrific time presenting this session, thanks to everyone in the audience: you were awesome!

You can watch the video here, and follow the link above to see even more great videos from the conference for free.

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Auto-Tuning and the #1 Mindset Problem I Had as a DBA

Auto-Tuning and the #1 Mindset Problem I Had as a DBA

A few folks have asked: will auto-tuning and adaptive query plans mean the end of performance tuning jobs for SQL Server? In this week’s episode, I talk about why I’m excited about those features rather than afraid of them.

Digging into this problem, I share the #1 mindset problem I had as a DBA, why this mindset is so common among database professionals, and a daily habit that can change your approach to new technology.

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In-Memory OLTP and Isolation Levels in SQL Server (Webcast Video with Transcript)

In-Memory OLTP and Isolation Levels in SQL Server (Webcast Video with Transcript)

on December 1, 2017

Category: sql-server

I had a great time this week talking about isolation levels with Hekaton – aka In-Memory OLTP – aka Memory Optimized tables. Here’s a video of the recorded webcast.

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Locked Pages, Working Set, and Private Bytes

Locked Pages, Working Set, and Private Bytes

on October 19, 2017

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 IĀ 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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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

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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