Month: February 2014

Backup and Recovery, SQL Server

126

Right now, your transaction log backups are set up to run every 15 minutes, every hour, or maybe every few hours. It’s time for a reality check. Figure out what internal customer owns the data inside the database, and walk into their office. Ask them how much data they’re comfortable losing. You’re probably going to…

Alaska has a SQL Server User Group!

Last Updated February 13, 2014

Doug Lane

#SQLPass, Writing and Presenting

Alaska is on the PASS map! I’m really stoked to share the news: Alaska (my home state) finally has a PASS Chapter of its own! The group just got started last December, and officially welcomed into the PASS organization at the end of January. While they don’t have a Facebook or Twitter account yet, they…

Extended Events for Tracking Code Improvements (video)

Last Updated February 21, 2014

Ever wanted to prove that your code or index changes had a positive impact? In this 30 minute video, Kendra shows you how to use Extended Events to measure a production workload– and how you can aggregate the results to prove your changes made a difference. Want to skip straight to the demos? Here’s a…

The Evolution of SQL Server Instrumentation

Last Updated February 19, 2014

One of my favorite things about SQL Server is the instrumentation. It’s incredibly good at giving you information about what’s going on in the database engine and query optimizer. Want to know why your server is slow? Need to know what made it go offline? You have a lot of tools available. This hasn’t always…

San Diego Class Recap

Last Updated February 19, 2014

We had a lot of fun this month teaching SQL Server classes at the San Diego Harbor Hilton. (We wrote about how we picked the cities earlier.) Even when we teach, we learn, and then we share what we learned, so here we are. San Diego Harbor Hilton We like to try new things with our…

How to count the number of rows in a table in SQL Server

Last Updated January 28, 2021

Jes Schultz

“How many rows exist in a table?” It seems like such an innocent request. It isn’t too hard to get this information out of SQL Server. But before you open SSMS and whip out a quick query, understand that there are multiple methods to get this information out of SQL Server – and none of…

Why Your Slow SQL Server Doesn’t Need a SQL Consultant (or Does It?)

Last Updated February 13, 2014

Your SQL Server is slow – but should you call us in? Jeremiah and Brent had a throw-down the other day, and we figured we’d capture it here on the blog. Brent Says You Do, and Here’s Why 5. You’ve been blindly throwing money at the problem without results. You’re on a first name basis…

PREEMPTIVE_OS_WRITEFILEGATHER and Instant File Initialization (IFI)

Last Updated February 13, 2014

The other day I was running a script I’d written to expand out some tables in the AdventureWorks sample database for some testing. The script was taking a long time, and at first I thought I was just spoiled because I usually run my tests on my laptop, whose storage is backed by SSDs. In…

Using SQL Server’s Table Valued Parameters

Last Updated March 7, 2018

Jeremiah Peschka

Table valued parameters (TVPs) are nothing new – they were introduced in SQL Server 2008. TVPs are a great way to get data into SQL Server, and yet very few developers use them. Getting Started with TVPs In order to get started, we need to create a user defined type. This type is necessary so…

Statistics Matter on Temp Tables, Too

Last Updated February 13, 2017

SQL Server, TempDB

Temp tables are like real tables, just a little tricker. When you’re starting out writing TSQL, it’s easy to want to do all your work in a single query. You learn about derived sub-queries, CROSS APPLY statements, and common table expressions. Suddenly, each of your queries is so complex that you hardly know what you’re…

What If You Knew The Server Would Crash Today?

Last Updated January 26, 2014

This morning you woke up with a terrible premonition – you were absolutely sure your most important production database server was going to crash today. What would you do? Step 0: stop for coffee, because it’s gonna be a long day. Here’s a quick list of places to start: Identify where the most recent backups…

Satya Slips a SQL Server Standard Secret?

Last Updated February 4, 2014