When I write blog posts or presentations, I want to write posts that will impress people. I want people to say, “Wow, that guy’s a rocket surgeon. He really knows his stuff. He’s working on the cutting edge.” I’ve talked to other people who want to get started blogging or presenting, and they usually have [...]
Meetings are like bad blocking queries – they tie up precious resources and stop other people from getting work done. Today, let’s talk about how to optimize both of ‘em by doing homework ahead of time and minimizing the number of objects in the transaction.
The Professional Association for SQL Server recently sent its members a survey asking where they should hold their next summit – in Seattle again, or rotate it around the country. Initially we heard that the results wouldn’t be posted for a variety of reasons, but the PASS Board of Directors heard the community loud and [...]
Solid state drives (SSDs) have gotten a lot of press because they can be dramatically faster than magnetic hard drives. They use flash memory instead of spinning magnetic platters. Since any bit of memory can be accessed at any time without moving a hard drive’s head around, SSD random access is insanely fast.
How fast are [...]
Did you miss the free all-day webcasts I did with Kevin Kline and Ari Weil on how to use DMVs to troubleshoot and tune your SQL Servers? Good news – the archives are now online!
You can access the videos, slide decks, links, scripts, and more for free at QuestKB.com/Live.
Congratulations to @JBrown414 for having the highest-voted #SQLServerPediaTraining tweet on the SQLServerPedia stream! He said:
“If it looks, smells and tastes like bacon, then it has to be #sqlserverpediatraining. Best training there is.“
I agree! Here were some of the other quotes:
“The best tool to detect performance issues is to use a DMV (delicious meat vitamin) BACON. [...]
The hash tag #SQLServerPediaTraining could win you a free netbook!
Just tweet what you thought of our free SQL Server training event this week and include #SQLServerPediaTraining in your tweet. We’ll pick up your tweets over at the SQLServerPedia stream, a new feature of SQLServerPedia that we’re testing out, and you can vote on what people [...]
Crystal meth helps you lose weight and feel better about yourself.
It’s true. Wikipedia says so. Sure, the side effects of methamphetamine are more than just anorexia and euphoria, but if you’re looking to be an upbeat, skinny person, meth gets the job done. SQL Server has a couple of similar features that might make your [...]
We need to talk.
You may not know me, but I’m one of your readers. You’ve become part of my routine. I really like your stuff, but I’ve never really said anything until now. I don’t want to leave a comment, because there’s not really a place in your blog to leave comments like this. I [...]
Every now and then, I get frustrated with the way my web site looks. I toss a stick of dynamite at it and start fresh.
This weekend I splurged on the Headway WordPress theme, a premium theme that has a slick GUI editor. I can make different pages look wildly different without too much effort.
Here’s some [...]
Pop quiz: should you be worried if your SQL Server’s page life expectancy is averaging 214? There’s only one correct answer: it depends.
Performance tuning is all about finding the RIGHT bottleneck, focusing on it, and fixing it to the application owner’s satisfaction. Learn what happens if you don’t do it right.
Read More »Erika’s friends call her “Fancy Feast” because she only likes the best things in life. She’s got champagne tastes, but we can’t afford to buy the best of everything. I recently picked up a coffee table from Ikea, and it got me thinking about SQL Azure.
In a perfect world, I’d have on-premise SQL Server for every database. I’d use cutting-edge storage and cluster everything. But this isn’t a perfect world…
Read More »I get a lot of questions from people who want to get a better job. They want to know if certification, training, or branching out will help them get the job of their dreams. These things just aren’t the real answer.
The answer is simple: the Buddy System. Learn why.
Read More »In high school, I threw a huge party in Grandma’s house. It had long-lasting implications – among other things, I got disinherited.
Learn why SQL Server data compression has a lot in common with me after that Jungle Juice bash.
Read More »When my Grandpa Ozar wanted to find out if his 10 megabyte 5.25″ hard drive was responding fast enough to handle his database loads, he monitored the Perfmon counter Physical Disk: Disk Queue Length.
Things have changed since Grandpa’s time, though, and now it’s time to learn a new performance tuning trick – SQL Server waits.
Read More »