SQL Server

Microsoft Azure, SQL Server

We had a comment recently on Five Things That Fix Bad SQL Server Performance that got me thinking. The comment came from a frustrated system administrator, who wrote: Chucking resources at a problem is not solving that problem, it’s just temporarily masking the symptoms of that problem. Funnily enough, I’ve heard the exact same thing from…

Is Azure Really 60% Faster?

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Jeremiah Peschka

Microsoft just announced a new round of D-grade VMs that have 60% faster CPU and local SSD than can go up to 7,000 IOPS in a canned IOmeter test. Before jumping to conclusions or, even worse, picking a cloud provider, it’s best to look at these numbers critically. CPU Speeds The new CPU is being…

The Very First Concern with SQL Virtualization: Licensing

Last Updated February 9, 2017

Licensing, SQL Server, Virtualization

Every single thing you do with a virtual SQL Server starts with one very important concern: how are you going to license it? The 3 Common Ways to License Virtual SQL Servers The software licensing section of my local library Developer Edition, by the guest – Developer Edition has all the power of Enterprise Edition,…

We’re Changing SQL Server Training Classes.

Last Updated January 17, 2019

Until now, SQL Server training usually meant registering for a course, showing up, hearing a lecture from a podium (often from someone who’s only done demos on their laptop, not production systems), working through a few workshops, and then going home with a bunch of ideas. It was like trying to ride a rollercoaster by…

Great new Microsoft KB article: Recommended SQL Server Updates and Trace Flags

Last Updated September 11, 2014

Got a high performance SQL Server 2012 instance? Check out the brand new KB article for recommended updates and configuration options for SQL Server 2012 and SQL Server 2014 used with high-performance workloads. Make sure you expand the following plus sign – this is where all the good stuff is stored: Expand this. After expanding it,…

Log Shipping Magic: Using A Differential Backup to Refresh a Delayed Secondary

Last Updated August 15, 2024

Log Shipping, SQL Server

Log: It’s better than bad, it’s good! Let’s say you’re a DBA managing a 2TB database. You use SQL Server transaction log shipping to keep a standby copy of the database nice and warm in case of emergency. Lots of data can change in your log shipping primary database: sometimes it’s index maintenance, sometimes it’s…

Finding Unanswered StackExchange Questions with SQL

Last Updated August 29, 2014

You love Q&A sites like StackOverflow.com and DBA.StackExchange.com, but sometimes it’s hard to find interesting questions that need to be answered. So many people just sit around hitting refresh, knocking out the new incoming questions as soon as they come in. What’s a database person to do? Use the power of the SQL. Data.StackExchange.com lets…

I’m Speaking at kCura Relativity Fest 2014 about SQL Server

Last Updated February 9, 2017

kCura Relativity, SQL Server

I’m very proud to announce that kCura selected me to speak again this year at Relativity Fest, the annual gathering of e-discovery professionals. I’ve been doing a lot of Relativity work (here’s a recap of my blog posts about it) and I really like working with the company and the product. Heck, I even attended…

Should I Run sp_recompile After I Create An Index?

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Indexing, SQL Server

Making index changes in SQL Server is tricky: you immediately want to know if the new index helped your performance and if it’s being used, but SQL Server execution plans and their related statistics can be are insanely confusing. It can be useful to run sp_recompile after you create an index, but not necessarily for the reason you might…

Watch This Week’s Webcast Today (and Win a Prize Tomorrow)

Last Updated August 19, 2014

We always like to innovate — not just with the solutions we design for our consulting customers and in how we teach, but in our free videos, too. Our YouTube channel has become super popular. Lots of folks watch the recordings of our live webcasts. We stopped recently and asked, “How can we make this even…

Developers: You Don’t Need a DBA. I’ll Prove It.

Last Updated February 12, 2017

#SQLPass, SQL Server

That’s right, you heard me, and I’ll prove it on a really big stage. I’m honored to announce that I’ll be the first speaker at this year’s 24 Hours of PASS: Summit Preview Edition. On Tuesday, September 9th, join me for my newest session: “Developers: Who Needs a DBA?” Here’s the abstract: You store data in…

Generating Identities

Last Updated August 13, 2014

Jeremiah Peschka

The only thing you ever need to use for database identity is an IDENTITY, right? Well, maybe. There are a lot of different options and they all have different pros and cons. IDENTITY columns The default way to identify objects in SQL Server is to use an INT or BIGINT column marked as an IDENTITY. This guarantees relatively sequential numbers, barring…

Why Archive Data?

Last Updated August 1, 2014

Jeremiah Peschka

Oracle, SQL Server

The data story so far Meet Margot. Margot is an application developer who works for a small company. Margot’s application collects and generates a lot of data from users including their interactions with the site, emails and texts that they send, and user submitted forms. Data is never deleted from the database, but only a…

Changing SQL Server Editions: Standard, Enterprise, Evaluation and More

Last Updated August 1, 2014

“Enterprise Edition was installed for SQL Server, but it turns out that we only have a license for Standard Edition. Is that an easy change?” I see this question a lot. The answer is well documented by Microsoft, but it seems to be really hard for folks to find! If you’d like to go straight…

The Top 3 Trickiest Features in SQL Server (Twitter Poll)

Last Updated July 24, 2014

I’ve worked with a lot of features in SQL Server. I know what I think is tricky and more difficult than it looks like at first. But experiences vary, right? So I asked the Twitterverse, “What are the Top 3 Trickiest Features in SQL Server?” Here’s what I heard back. #1: Replication SQL Server Replication “wins”…

Using Triggers to Automatically Add Indexes

Last Updated February 13, 2017

Bad Idea Jeans, Indexing, SQL Server

Let’s say you’ve got a vendor application that creates tables, loads them, queries them, and drops them all the time. You can’t change the code. The tables involved desperately need an index in order to go faster, and they’re your biggest performance bottleneck. Enter DDL triggers. Regular DML triggers fire when you insert/update/delete rows in a…

Learning By Doing: How We’re Innovating In Our Seattle Course, “Make SQL Apps Go Faster”

Last Updated August 15, 2024

A team challenge in our training in Chicago, 2013 As teachers, we’re always working to maximize the skills that students can learn in a given amount of time. Many students “learn by doing.” But what’s the best way to do this? You may immediately think of lab exercises as an option. But labs are treacherous to implement…

The SQL Server Components of kCura Relativity

Last Updated February 9, 2017