sp_BlitzFirst

[Video] How to Capture Baselines with sp_BlitzFirst

Last Updated October 15, 2019

Everybody tells you to capture baselines – but what exactly are you supposed to capture? Which Perfmon counters matter? How do you track which data files are growing, and which ones are slow? How can you track which queries are using the most resources? All you have to do is install the free, open source…

How to Do a Free SQL Server Performance Check

Last Updated November 18, 2017

Brent Ozar

First Responder Kit, Processes and Practices, sp_BlitzCache, sp_BlitzFirst

Your client or boss just said, “Find out why this SQL Server is slow.” You’ve already done a free SQL Server health check, and now you wanna investigate deeper. Step 1: Download & run sp_BlitzFirst. Start with wait stats, which tell you what the SQL Server has been waiting on since the service was last…

What To Do If sp_BlitzFirst Warns About High Compilations

Last Updated November 16, 2017

Erik Darling

First Responder Kit, sp_BlitzFirst, SQL Server

Compiles Aren’t The Same As Recompiles If you’re seeing high RECOMPILES, this post isn’t for you. We’ll talk about the differences between compiles and recompiles, but not how to troubleshoot recompiles. Recompiles mean one of two obvious things: You have a RECOMPILE hint at the stored procedure or statement level, or SQL found a reason…

Learn to Use sp_Blitz, sp_BlitzCache, sp_BlitzFirst, and sp_BlitzIndex with These Tutorial Videos

Last Updated September 22, 2020

Brent Ozar

First Responder Kit, sp_Blitz, sp_BlitzCache, sp_BlitzFirst, sp_BlitzIndex

There have been so many improvements lately to our First Responder Kit scripts that it was time to update our tutorial videos. Each of these is about ten minutes long and shows how to use ’em: How to Use sp_Blitz for a Health Check How to Use sp_BlitzCache to Find Slow Queries How to Use…

Memory Grants Added to sp_BlitzCache and sp_BlitzFirst

Last Updated January 8, 2019

Erik Darling

First Responder Kit, Memory Grants, sp_BlitzCache, sp_BlitzFirst

Exciting New Doodads When SP3 for 2012 dropped, we were all super excited by the new query tuning-centric features that were at our disposal. Now all we had to do was get people to install SP3! Great features like this make patching an easier sell. Now with SP2 for 2014 out, a lot of those…

Why You Shouldn’t Use SQL Server’s Activity Monitor

Last Updated January 18, 2019

Kendra Little

sp_BlitzFirst, SQL Server

I love free tools. I also love analyzing SQL Server’s wait statistics. But I’m not a fan of Activity Monitor, a free tool in SQL Server Management studio, which helps you look at wait stats. Activity Monitor just doesn’t give you the whole truth. I fired up a workload with HammerDB against a test SQL Server 2014 instance.…