Year: 2014

Oracle

Execution plans are fantastic – they make it easier to visualize how a query is running and find tuning opportunities. SQL Server DBAs starting with Oracle may be a bit frustrated by the lack of a clear way to get to execution plans. This covers three ways to get to execution plans in Oracle –…

How to Back Up Terabytes of Databases

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Backup and Recovery, SQL Server

When you weren’t looking, your databases went and grew up. Now your backup window has grown so large that you’re about ready to open it and jump. Time to make a choice. The Native Way: Tuning SQL Server Backups You can theoretically pull this off by using a combination of tactics: Back up as infrequently as the…

Comparing Estimated and Actual Execution Plans in SQL Server

Last Updated May 12, 2019

Jes Schultz

Execution Plans, SQL Server

Let’s say you want to have an addition built on your house. You contact a contractor, who comes to your house, looks at your lot, looks at what exists, and asks you questions about exactly what you want. He then gives you an estimate of the work – approximately how long he thinks it will…

Performance Tuning SQL Server Transactional Replication: A Checklist

Last Updated September 14, 2018

Replication

Swim faster! SQL Server transactional replication is a blessing and a curse. It’s a great developer tool that lets you scale out data to multiple servers, even using Standard Edition. But as your business picks up, your datasets get larger, and your customers grow more demanding, replication can start to fall behind. You need to…

Backing Up an Oracle Database

Last Updated July 14, 2014

Oracle

One of a DBA’s most important tasks is taking backups of databases. As SQL Server DBAs, we’re used to using the same tools to backup the database that we use for the rest of our job. With Oracle, there are two main ways to back up a database: user managed backups and Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN).…

Stabilizing Execution Plans: Plan Guides and NORECOMPUTE

Last Updated May 26, 2020

Execution Plans, Parameter Sniffing, SQL Server

What could go wrong? Sometimes you end up in a good plan / bad plan situation: an important query runs just fine most of the time. The query is parameterized, a good execution plan gets re-used, everything is cool. But sometimes, a “bad plan” gets compiled and starts to be reused. This is “bad” parameter sniffing. “Bad plans” can…

Oracle Terminology for the SQL Server DBA

Last Updated January 14, 2015

Oracle, SQL Server

The translation team hard at work. At some point you’re going to be confronted with an Oracle installation or even just an Oracle DBA. Communicating with a DBA who works on a different product can be difficult, it’s like speaking US English and having a conversation with a native English speaker from Scotland. The words…

Our Senior DBA Training Class: Attendee Feedback

Last Updated August 15, 2024

When we finish our courses, we ask attendees what they thought. Here’s what they said about our How to Be a Senior DBA class in Chicago: “I’ve attended many trainings. This is the most valuable I’ve ever attended.” – Tim Costello, Consultant “ROI for training is always a gamble. However, I felt like I received…

New sp_Blitz® v35 Checks for Unsupported and Dangerous SQL Server Builds

Last Updated February 13, 2017

First Responder Kit, SQL Server

News broke recently of a dangerous data loss bug in SQL Server 2012 and 2014, and Aaron Bertrand explained which patch levels are affected. It’s kinda tricky, and I’m afraid most people aren’t even going to know about the bug – let alone whether or not they’re on a bad version. I added build number checking into…

Monitoring SQL Server Transactional Replication

Last Updated October 5, 2021

Replication

“It will catch up eventually. I hope.” It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I was a SQL Server DBA, and if something went wrong in Transactional Replication I needed to find out about it right away and help keep things healthy, day or night. Here’s what I learned from…

Our Sessions at the #SQLPASS Summit 2014

Last Updated June 25, 2014

#SQLPass, SQL Server

The session list has been published, and we’re excited to say all of us have been selected to speak at the PASS Summit again this year. Here’s our sessions: Are Your Indexes Hurting You or Helping You? – Jes Schultz Borland – Queries need your help! Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to…

Performance Tuning SQL Server Change Tracking

Last Updated August 11, 2015

Change Tracking is a developer tool introduced in SQL Server 2008 to help you sync data between SQL Servers, or between SQL Servers and devices. It’s designed to help you answer the request, “I need to get the most recent value for rows that have been modified since I last grabbed data.” First, I’ll give you…

How to Pick a Monitoring Tool

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Monitoring

Step 1: Make a list of 5 problems you’ve faced in the last couple of months that you needed alerting on. If you’ve got a help desk ticket system, look at the ticket types that occur most frequently and cause the most outage times. For me as a DBA, that might be: SQL Server service…

Trace Flags 1117, 1118, and Tempdb Configuration

Last Updated November 4, 2020

SQL Server, TempDB

Unevenly sized tempdb files can cause uneven use – and contention on some critical pages SQL Server has a few options for configuring tempdb. It’s great that Microsoft gives some advice for how to battle some kinds of contention that can impact tempdb in KB 2154845, but things can still be a little confusing. Trace…

Announcing the SQL Server Setup Checklist: Free eBook Download

Last Updated May 5, 2017

One of the most popular posts on this site of all time is a SQL Server Setup Checklist that Brent started way back in March 2008. Over the years, we’ve updated the post and kept it fresh for installing and configuring SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2008R2, 2012, and 2014. Now we’ve taken it one step further:…

In-Memory Analytics: What’s Different Between SQL Server and Oracle

Last Updated June 16, 2014

Oracle, SQL Server

Pick a memory, any memory. Both Microsoft and Oracle have released what they call “in-memory analytics” features. Microsoft started two years ago with SQL Server 2012 and Oracle is following suit next month (July 2014) with the Oracle In-Memory Analytics feature. Most of us won’t pick our database platform based on just one feature, but…

Sizing SQL Server for AWS

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Let’s skip the shenanigans and get right down to it – you’re responsible for SQL Server and someone in your company wants to move things into Amazon Web Services (AWS). You’ve got SQL Server setup covered thanks to our helpful SQL Server setup checklist and you’re confident you’ve got hardware under control, but things are…

Capturing Deadlocks in SQL Server

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Jes Schultz

Locking, Blocking, and Isolation Levels, SQL Server

What’s a deadlock? Well, let’s say there’s a fight going on between Wonder Woman and Cheetah, and, in the same room, a fight between Batman and Mr. Freeze. Wonder Woman decides to help Batman by also attempting to throw her lasso around Mr. Freeze; Batman tries to help Wonder Woman by unleashing a rope from…

Our SQL Server Performance Troubleshooting Class: Attendee Feedback

Last Updated August 15, 2024