-
DBCC OPTIMIZER_WHATIF: Spoofing production hardware
Performance tuning in a development environment can be difficult. Processor core count and memory are important factors in execution plan generation. The undocumented command DBCC OPTIMIZER_WHATIF will alter the optimizer’s perception of its server resources. Syntax You can use the DBCC HELP command to find the syntax for the DBCC OPTIMIZER_WHATIF command. [sql]DBCC TRACEON (2588) WITH […]
-
T-SQL Tuesday #84: Building an hour of content
This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is being hosted by Andy Yun (t | b). T-SQL Tuesday (#TSQL2SDAY) is a blog party founded by Adam Machanic (t | b). Each month a member of the community hosts the party and selects the topic for us to write about. This month’s topic is growing new speakers. It is […]
-
Unique Indexes and Computed Columns in SQL Server
In the last post of this blog series, I discussed what a non-clustered index is and how to choose an ideal non-clustered index key. In this post, I will discuss indexes on computed columns and unique indexes. Computed columns Computed columns almost do not fit into this series about indexes but I felt it was […]
-
QS-Config is no longer supported
It saddens me to announce that I will no longer be supporting QS-Config. It seems like a long time since I wrote the first version of it, long before I ever decided to publish it. At the time I was just trying to solve a problem for myself. The project evolved and I wanted to […]
-
Demo God Recovery Kit
I was scheduled to give a virtual presentation to the MagicPASS user group. The week before I received a beta update for Windows 10. My computer became very unstable. It would not boot half of the time and it corrupted my virtual machines twice. I spent many hours fighting these problems, all the way up […]
-
Non-Clustered Indexes in SQL Server
In the last post of this blog series, I discussed what a clustered index is and how to choose an ideal clustered index key. In this post, I will describe the non-clustered index and offer design tips as they relate to query performance. Unlike a clustered index, non-clustered indexes do not contain all the columns […]
-
Measuring Availability Group Synchronization Lag
With all of the high-availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) features, the database administrator must understand how much data loss and downtime is possible under the worst case scenarios. Data loss affects your ability to meet recovery point objectives (RPO) and downtime affects your recovery time objectives (RTO). When using Availability Groups (AGs), your RTO […]
-
Choosing Subway
By the time this post is published I will likely be pulling into the parking lot at the Subway World Headquarters, ready to receive my employee badge. My time with Ascension Information Services, and possibly healthcare IT, has come to an end. I was content with my position. Many of my former co-workers were confused […]
-
SQL Agent 2016 Jobs Running PowerShell Scripts
I recently performed a side-by-side upgrade of a SQL Server 2008 R2 instance to SQL Server 2016 RTM. This particular instance had over 200 SQL Agent jobs running various PowerShell scripts. After the upgrade I had to modify nearly all of those PowerShell scripts because of a bug with the PowerShell SQLSERVER provider that is […]
-
SQL Server 2016 Basic Installer
On many occasions I have found myself installing SQL Server and/or its development tools for a non-DBA power user. It always frustrated me to do this because I feel that SQL Server is for advanced users and I would expect advanced users to be able to install software for themselves. This, however, was unfair of […]