Month: November 2015

Announcing our 2016 SQL Server Training Scholarship Winners

Last Updated February 12, 2017

We’re serious about the heart thing. Thanksgiving is the perfect day for us to give back to the community that has given so much to us. Our SQL Server Training Scholarship program applications were open to folks anywhere in the world working with SQL Server for foundations, non-profits, charities, or other similar companies making a real…

Trace Flag 2330: Who needs missing index requests?

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Erik Darling

Bad Idea Jeans, Indexing, SQL Server

Hey, remember 2005? What a great year for… not SQL Server. Mirroring was still a Service Pack away, and there was an issue with spinlock contention on OPT_IDX_STATS or SPL_OPT_IDX_STATS. The KB for it is over here, and it’s pretty explicit that the issue was fixed in 2008, and didn’t carry over to any later…

Angie Walker Joins Brent Ozar Unlimited

Last Updated April 9, 2017

Angie Rudduck

Company News

The newest cartoon face at Brent Ozar Unlimited: Angie Walker Brent says: remember a couple months back when we announced that we were hiring a SQL Server Triage Specialist? We’re really proud to welcome Angie Walker to our funky little medical team. When you bring us in for a SQL Critical Care®, Angie might be the first person…

SQL Server 2012 SP3 Adds Memory Grant and Performance Features

Last Updated January 8, 2019

Kendra Little

Memory Grants, SQL Server

New ways to measure your queries SQL Server 2012 SP3 has just been freshly released! Not only does this release contain bug fixes, it also contains a slew of performance tuning related features. Many of these features are about memory grants. This is NOT the memory used in the buffer pool/ data cache by the…

Brent’s Bad Idea Jeans: Stop People From Changing Tables with This One Trick

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Brent Ozar

Bad Idea Jeans, Humor, SQL Server

Developers hate his bad idea jeans: Transact-SQL CREATE VIEW dbo.StopThemDead WITH SCHEMABINDING AS SELECT COUNT(*) FROM dbo.Table1 UNION ALL SELECT COUNT(*) FROM dbo.Table2 UNION ALL.... 123456 CREATE VIEW dbo.StopThemDead WITH SCHEMABINDINGASSELECT COUNT(*) FROM dbo.Table1UNION ALLSELECT COUNT(*) FROM dbo.Table2UNION ALL.... Presto, the schemabinding option means no one can change the underlying tables. (At least, until they…

Why is SQL Server Slow Sometimes – But Only Sometimes?

Last Updated November 12, 2015

Brent Ozar

SQL Server

Have you got a SQL Server that usually performs just fine, but every now and then, everything falls to pieces? Users complain about performance, and then minutes – or hours – later, the problem just mysteriously solves itself? Here’s a few things to look for: Are data or log files growing? When SQL Server needs to…

Is My SQL Server Too Big for Virtualization or the Cloud?

Last Updated November 10, 2015

Brent Ozar

SQL Server

Let’s set size aside for a second. Here’s the order in which you should try new technologies – whether it’s virtualization, cloud, storage, or whatever: Development servers with less than 100GB of data Production servers with less than 100GB of data Development servers with <1TB Production servers with <1TB Development servers with >1TB Production servers with…

What kCura Relativity Best in Service Means for SQL Server DBAs

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Brent Ozar

kCura Relativity, SQL Server

kCura Relativity is a legal e-discovery application that hosts its data in SQL Server. You can host it yourself, or hire a hosting partner who specializes in hosting it for you. The best hosting partners compete for Best in Service status, an award that means what it says on the tin. Starting this year, kCura’s…

#FreeCon 2015 PASS Summit Recap

Last Updated November 1, 2016

Brent Ozar

SQL Server

We believe that when you’re at a community event, the most valuable thing isn’t what’s up on the screen. Instead, it’s building relationships with the people around you. With that in mind, over the last five years, we’ve run a series of FreeCons – totally free networking events for the SQL Server community. This year’s…

Interviewing: How to Test TSQL Writing Skills

Last Updated November 2, 2015

Kendra Little

SQL Server

“Sure, I write great queries!” We sometimes help clients interview DBAs and Developers for their team. Requirements vary depending by position, but sometimes it’s important to test a candidate’s TSQL skills. While I can test candidates thoroughly on strategies for TSQL (when they’d use certain constructs, the pros and cons of various approaches), if what…

The case for Query Store in tempdb

Last Updated December 4, 2020

Erik Darling

Execution Plans, Query Store (QDS), TempDB

Query Store is so cool Billed as a flight data recorder for SQL Server, the Query Store is a repository of execution plan information, like the plan cache, except a bit more actionable. And it has a GUI. “Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You’ll find me there, staring out at you!”…