Production Database Administration

[Video] How Can I Measure If My Database Does More Reads Than Writes?

When someone asks you, “Is this database read-intensive or write-intensive?” you probably look at sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats to measure the file activity – but that isn’t really correct. After all, your users run a lot of queries all day that are simply satisfied from the buffer pool. SQL Server caches your data so it doesn’t have to hit…
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Which SQL Server Enterprise Edition Should I Download?

When you’re downloading SQL Server, it’s important to choose Enterprise Core, not Enterprise. The plain “Enterprise” one is limited to just 20 CPU cores. But let’s say you didn’t know that, and you waltzed over to the download page. There are two Enterprises listed, and it’s not really clear what the differences are between the two:…
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Why Database Monitoring Tools Are So Hard to Interpret

Monitoring
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SentryOne’s Greg Gonzalez recently published a post about “Why Wait Stats Alone Are Not Enough.” Sure, Greg’s obviously biased towards his own monitoring tool, but his post is really well-written and fair. I want to explain the same story, but from a different (and simplified) angle. Say we’ve got a really simple database server, and…
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DBA Training Plan 22: Where to Learn More

Whew. We’ve worked through a couple dozen posts together in this DBA Training Plan, and you’re still just getting warmed up. First, pick your specialty. Here’s some of the more popular specializations in the SQL Server business: Production administration – managing uptime, building new boxes, troubleshooting clusters, setting up storage, designing virtualization infrastructures Performance tuning…
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