Posts by Jeremiah Peschka

Jeremiah Peschka

121 posts

When I’m not working with databases, you’ll find me at a food truck in Portland, Oregon, or at conferences such as DevLink, Stir Trek, and OSCON. My sessions have been highly rated and I pride myself on their quality.

Announcing sp_BlitzCache v2.5.0

Last Updated October 22, 2015

Jeremiah Peschka

SQL Server

Woohoo, it’s another half of the year which means it’s time for another version of sp_BlitzCache®. The last version came out on June 18th, and it’s been about 4 months. In that time frame, you have requested some new features, and they’ve slowly trickled into sp_BlitzCache®. If you don’t want to wait, head over to the download…

In Review: SQL Server 2005 Waits and Queues

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Jeremiah Peschka

Wait Stats

Back in November of 2006, Microsoft released “SQL Server 2005 Waits and Queues” as a best practices article. Many people in the SQL Server community have referenced this article as a great place to get started with understanding waits in SQL Server. Heck, I’ve recommend it on a regular basis. The last time I recommended…

Make Technical Decisions Easily With This One Trick

Last Updated September 30, 2015

Jeremiah Peschka

SQL Server

Decisions are emotional, right? Brent loves Sanka and I love Postum. We fight about it all the time. But when we wanted to settle the debate once and for all, we engineered a test to figure out who was right. You can do the same thing to take the personal investment out of technical decisions…

Forgotten Maintenance – Cycling the SQL Server Error Log

Last Updated September 25, 2015

Jeremiah Peschka

SQL Server

Most of us get caught up in fragmentation, finding the slowest queries, and looking at new features. We forget the little things that make managing a SQL Server easier – like cylcing the SQL Server error logs. What’s the Error Log? The SQL Server error log is a file that is full of messages generated…

Getting Started with Diskspd

Last Updated September 15, 2015

Jeremiah Peschka

SQL Server

Diskspeed, or diskspd.exe, is Microsoft’s replacement for SQLIO. While I’m not going to replace our SQLIO tutorial, you can use the information in here to replicate the same type of tests on your systems to get the information you need. During the Dell DBA Days, Doug and I used diskspd as one of our techniques…

Enabling Query Store in Azure SQL Database

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Jeremiah Peschka

Execution Plans, Microsoft Azure, Query Store (QDS)

Enter Query Store Query Store, in short, is a way to track query performance over time. In Microsoft’s words, “The feature automatically captures a history of queries, plans, and runtime statistics, and retains these for your review”. It’s like sys.dm_exec_query_stats but it persists across reboots! And it has execution plans! The Query Store is a…

Getting JSON out of SQL Server

Last Updated October 11, 2015

Jeremiah Peschka

SQL Server

SQL Server 2016 brings support for JSON. For those of you who don’t know, JSON is JavaScript Object Notation – it’s a way of representing application level objects as a string. Imagine XML without anywhere near as much line noise, and you’re pretty much there. Our Sample Document In this example, to retrieve orders and…

The Fastest Way to Reconfigure a Bunch of Servers

Last Updated June 20, 2015

Jeremiah Peschka

Cloud Computing, SQL Server

… is to use a SQL Server where a robot does it for you! I stole that from Kendra – someone else already wrote the sentence for me and why not keep re-using things, right? Configuring SQL Servers the Usual Way What’s the usual way to do this? There are a few commercial tools on…

Faster queries using narrow indexes and CROSS APPLY

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Jeremiah Peschka

Indexing, SQL Server

It’s common to try to build the perfect index for a query. This index only uses the exact right columns for the key columns and other, presentational, data is pushed to the INCLUDE section of the index. While you can create a narrow key this way, the entire index row can become wide. A Sample…

Do Foreign Keys Matter for Insert Speed

Last Updated December 29, 2021

Jeremiah Peschka

Foreign Keys

Do you have the key? Do foreign keys hurt the performance of inserts? Okay, we all know that foreign keys do require some work, but the crazy people of the internet have wildly varying guesses as to just how much work is involved. Estimates varied from “barely any” to “as much as 50% slower”. I…

Finches and Job Roles

Last Updated April 30, 2015

Jeremiah Peschka

SQL Server

Developers – how much operations work are you doing? DBAs – how much development do you do? The Separation of Duties For most of us, we stick to our assigned job role. Developers write code and then throw it over the wall for the ops team to put in place. If there’s a problem, there…

SQL Server Version Detection

Last Updated April 30, 2015

Jeremiah Peschka

SQL Server

Every now and then, you need to figure out which version of SQL Server you’re using without knowing in advance. This might happen in a script (like sp_BlitzCache) or you might be using it in a migration. Getting the SQL Server Version with @@VERSION THe first thing that comes to mind is @@VERSION. On my…

Moving Databases Made Easy – SQL Server on a File Share

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Jeremiah Peschka

Storage

We’ve all had to move a database. For databases above a small size, this is a painful process. While there are a number of ways that you can move a database without downtime, they all involve a lot of extra work. What if there were something easier? Every database is unique and precious. What’s the…

How Do I Know My Query Will Be Fast In Production?

Last Updated April 1, 2015

Jeremiah Peschka

SQL Server

We’ve all had this problem before – the production server is significantly more powerful than the development server. You tune a query and you’re pretty sure you’ve made it faster, but there’s that doubt in the back of your mind. There are so many things that can change performance – memory, CPU count, disk performance…

Identity Columns in Oracle

Last Updated March 27, 2015

Jeremiah Peschka

Oracle

Many databases have the ability to create automatically incremented numbers. In SQL Server, we can use an IDENTITY property on a column to get autoincrementing numbers. But what can do we in Oracle? Sequences Sequences work in all recent versions and editions of Oracle. The default way to do this is pretty simple: Transact-SQL CREATE…

Getting BLOBS out of the Database

Last Updated March 11, 2015

Jeremiah Peschka

Oracle, SQL Server

Raise your hand if you’re storing BLOBs in the database. I get to say that a lot during our training. Every time I say it, nearly every hand in the room goes up. Some hands go up faster than others, but eventually nearly every hand is up. It’s a design that happens far more often…

Which Tables are Being Used in Oracle?

Last Updated March 11, 2015

Jeremiah Peschka

Oracle

When we’re making changes to a database, it’s important to know which tables and indexes are in use. If we don’t need an index, maybe we can drop it. If nobody is using a table, do we still need it? We can find out which tables and indexes are in use through two different mechanisms.…

Formatting Oracle SQL*Plus Output (video)

Last Updated March 9, 2015

Jeremiah Peschka

Oracle

Just because it’s plain text, that doesn’t mean it has to be ugly. Join Jeremiah Peschka and learn the basics of formatting Oracle SQL*Plus output. Kendra says: that ability to eliminate repeating values is pretty rad!

SQL Server Common Table Expressions

Last Updated June 4, 2019

Jeremiah Peschka

SQL Server

Common table expressions are a feature of SQL that lets a developer create a query that can be referenced multiple times. This feature gives developers another tool to add flexibility or just to simplify code. Why Common Table Expression? Why is it called a Common Table Expression (CTE)? Because that’s what the documentation calls it!…

Comparing SQL Server and Oracle Log Shipping

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Jeremiah Peschka

Log Shipping, Oracle, SQL Server

Both Oracle and SQL Server offer several ways to support disaster recovery scenarios. One of the simplest ways to handle DR in the SQL Server world is to use SQL Server log shipping. Oracle doesn’t offer log shipping as a part of the core product, but it’s possible to set up log shipping in Oracle.…

Posts by Jeremiah Peschka

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