Month: October 2013

Memory is one of the most-used resources in SQL Server. Generally, the more you have, the better query performance you’ll get. This blog isn’t about the magic of the buffer pool or the plan cache, but you should understand how important they are to your server’s performance.  Since memory is such an important resource, you…

This week, Jeremiah, Kendra, and I are presenting at SQL Intersection, a conference that also happens at the same place and time as DevIntersection and AngleBrackets. I like Intersections because there’s a bunch of different technologies covered – SQL Server, all kinds of development, SharePoint, cloud, and infrastructure. Kendra Polling the Audience For our pre-con,…

Coming soon to a user group near you, it’s…me. November 13: Chicago .NET User Group Brent’s How to Think Like the Engine: SQL Server Internals for Developers You’re comfortable writing queries to get the data you need, but you’re much less comfortable trying to design the right indexes for your database. In this 90-minute session…

You’re a Database Administrator who gets the job done day in and day out– but you’re worried that maybe your skills aren’t quite up to par. How do you know if you’ve fallen behind? Join Kendra in this free webcast for a simple test to learn if your DBA knives are as sharp as they…

The database comes with a manual, but let’s be honest: nobody’s got time for that. DBAs – help me distill the most important concepts and rules down to 140-character chunks. I’ll work with Dell to compile the best tips into a free ebook for developers. SQL Server should come with warning labels, too. There’s three…

Problem: your database server’s performance stinks like Limburger cheese. Photo courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wisconsin_Limburger_Cheese.JPG Solution: find the queries that are making that smell. Hiding in Plain Sight Your database server knows exactly which queries are performing the worst. When queries are executed, the execution plans – and associated execution statistics – are stored in memory (with…

This Wednesday night, come join me at DevMynd. Here’s the topic I’ll be presenting: How StackOverflow Uses (And Doesn’t Use) SQL Server This insanely popular Q&A site serves millions of web pages per day from a Microsoft SQL Server 2012 back end. Believe it or not, the questions and answers come down to just one…