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Search Results for “execution plan”

7 Tips to Get the Best Free Help

Brent Ozar
5 Comments
Right now, people are waiting for your question.  They can’t wait to help you out, and they’ll give you incredibly good advice for free.  Here’s how to get it: 1. Boil the problem down to one question in one sentence. Technology is complicated, and your question probably has a lot of moving parts.  If you…
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Silent CPU Killers

Jeremiah Peschka
10 Comments
It’s always important to make sure that SQL Server is running at peak efficiency – nobody wants to waste resources. In the past we’ve concentrated on ways to reduce I/O – either network I/O or disk I/O. The increasing number of cores available in modern CPUs meant that CPU tuning wasn’t as much of a…
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Brent’s 2012 Conference Schedule

Brent Ozar
#SQLPass
5 Comments
I feel like the luckiest guy in the world: I get to take part in six major SQL Server events in 2012.  Here’s where I’m going and why: January 26-Feb 4: SQLCruise Miami SQLCruise is the highlight of my year.  This year, we’ve transitioned SQLCruise completely to Tim Ford – he owns the event start…
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Three Things That Rock About SQL Server

Kendra Little
3 Comments
When something remarkable is around for a while, it becomes easy to take it for granted. Today, I’ll share three awesome things about SQL Server with tips to give you an edge when using each one. #1. The Free Online Documentation is Mind Blowing SQL Server is a huge product. We’ve got the database engine,…
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Linked Servers Configured

Brent Ozar
Blitz Result: Linked Servers Configured Linked servers let your users query from one SQL Server to another (or even to other database platforms.)  There’s nothing wrong with linked servers by themselves, but often they get set up using powerful logins.  People set up a linked server over to another server, set it up to use…
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Foreign Keys or Check Constraints Not Trusted

Brent Ozar
3 Comments
Blitz Result: Foreign Keys or Check Constraints Not Trusted The tie that sometimes binds If you need to load a lot of data quickly, you can disable keys and constraints in order to improve performance.  After the data load finishes, enable them again, and SQL Server will check them behind the scenes.  This technique works…
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Index Tuning Wizard Left a Mess Behind

Brent Ozar
Blitz Result: Index Tuning Wizard Left a Mess Behind The Index Tuning Wizard and Database Tuning Advisor help you improve query performance by adding more indexes.  (Whether or not they’re good tools is a separate discussion, and we’ll set that aside for now.) These tools work by creating fake indexes, then getting a new execution…
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Queries Forcing Order Hints or Join Hints

Brent Ozar
2 Comments
Blitz Result: Queries Forcing Order Hints or Join Hints Think you know better than SQL Server?  Think you should be bossing it around? Your queries are doing just that.  Since the last SQL Server restart, someone’s been using query hints to force orders or join methods.  This part of our SQL Server sp_Blitz script checks…
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Tables Without Clustered Indexes

Brent Ozar
Tables Without Clustered Indexes Tables without clustered indexes are called heaps.  They’re scattered on disk anywhere that SQL Server can find a spot, and they’re not stored in any order whatsoever.  This can make for really fast inserts – SQL Server can just throw the data down – but slow selects, updates, and deletes.  This…
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Bill Graziano Supporting #SQLKilt Day

PASS Summit 2011 Day 2 Keynote Liveblog #sqlpass

Brent Ozar
#SQLPass
2 Comments
Time for another keynote liveblog.  Let’s get started. It’s #SQLKilt day!  Bill Griaziano is kicking things off in a kilt: Bill Graziano Supporting #SQLKilt Day 8:19am – Bill introducing Tim Radney and Jack Corbett as outstanding volunteers. 8:22 – Lori Edwards is the 2011 PASSion award for her outstanding work making this such a great…
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Date Correlation Enabled

Brent Ozar
Blitz Result: Date Correlation Enabled When two tables both have date fields, and the dates in the two tables have related distributions, SQL Server can build better execution plans if it knows about those relationships.  Date correlation is not a default setting, and it has some performance overhead.  It tells SQL Server that date fields…
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Forced Parameterization Enabled

Brent Ozar
Blitz Result: Forced Parameterization Some applications send all of their queries to SQL Server as unique strings rather than using parameters.  SQL Server assumes these incoming strings are unique, so it normally doesn’t bother to parse them out looking for parameters.  By turning on Forced Parameterization at the database level, we can tell SQL Server…
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Memory Dangerously Low or Max Memory Too High

Jeremiah Peschka
4 Comments
By default, SQL Server’s max memory is 2147483647 – a heck of a lot more than you actually have.  Trivia time – that’s the max number for a signed 32-bit integer.  SQL Server will just keep using more and more memory until there’s none left on the system. If the operating system has no memory…
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Auto Update Stats Async Enabled

Brent Ozar
11 Comments
Blitz Result: Auto Update Stats Async Enabled SQL Server maintains statistics that help it decide how to build better execution plans.  It periodically reviews the content of tables, updates its statistics about the distribution of data in fields, and uses that for execution plans.  By default, this happens automatically – statistics are updated when about…
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Auto Update Stats Disabled

Brent Ozar
Auto Update Stats Disabled SQL Server maintains statistics that help it decide how to build better execution plans.  It periodically reviews the content of tables, updates its statistics about the distribution of data in fields, and uses that for execution plans.  By default, this happens automatically – statistics are updated when about 20% of the…
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Auto Create Stats Not Enabled

Brent Ozar
Blitz Result: Auto Create Stats Not Enabled SQL Server watches queries to figure out what fields users often filter on.  When a query could benefit from knowing more about a particular field’s distribution, SQL Server decides to automatically create statistics to support the query.  By default, this happens automatically. This part of our SQL Server…
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Auto-Close Enabled

Brent Ozar
Auto Close Enabled Mom taught you that if you weren’t using one of your toys, you should put it away.  Some folks take this to an extreme and tell SQL Server to close databases that aren’t in use either.  We check sys.databases to see if is_auto_close_on = 1 for any of the databases. When databases…
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SQLservr.exe Mem Usage in Task Manager

A Sysadmin’s Guide to Microsoft SQL Server Memory

Brent Ozar
SQL Server
Database servers suck, don’t they?  Don’t you just hate dealing with these things?  They’re totally different than any other server in the shop, making a mockery of any CPU, memory, and storage you throw at ’em.  What the hell’s going on inside?  Today I’ll give you the basics – starting with the question every sysadmin…
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Encryption Demo 1

How Do You Mask Data for Secure Testing?

Brent Ozar
23 Comments
Data masking, data scrambling, and just plain old obfuscation: these are ways to get developers access to production-quality data for testing purposes without actually giving them real production data.  It’s much harder than it looks, though. The Easy Part: Obfuscating Data Developers love working with production data.  Today’s privacy-concerned companies aren’t quite so keen on…
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Brent Ozar

Hi! I’m Brent Ozar.

I make Microsoft SQL Server go faster. I love teaching, travel, cars, and laughing. I’m based out of Las Vegas. He/him. I teach SQL Server training classes, or if you haven’t got time for the pain, I’m available for consulting too.

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