Performance tuning

Murilo Miranda

In-Memory OLTP – Three key points to entertain your watchdog

February 4, 2015 by

With the introduction of the in-memory technology, we need to think about what are the new challenges to keep the service up and running. In this article I will explore one of the three key points to monitor in order to maintain your SQL Server healthy.

Last week I spoke at my local SQL Server user group, in Lisbon. The session was nice and the good feedback received encouraged me to write about this and share information that is not too spread over the internet (so far…): Monitor environments using In-Memory OLTP.

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Luan Moreno M. Maciel

In-Memory OLTP Series – Introduction

January 30, 2015 by

Introduced on SQL Server 2014, the new brand feature In-Memory OLTP a.k.a “Hekaton” is a Main-Memory Database Engine. Developed by Microsoft Research & Paul Larson (Database Research Group at MSFT) this feature have the ability to manage and held tables entirely In-Memory. In this Series we will pass through for all the new concepts and components that makes this New Engine the most excited acquisition of the new SQL Server Version (120).

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Murilo Miranda

Buffer Pool Extension (BPE) – How it works?

December 31, 2014 by

You already understand the benefits of the BPE and how to deal with the feature, now it’s time to better understand how it works.

Here we are, the last article of this Buffer Pool Extension series. We came from the explanation of what is the Buffer Pool, made an introduction of the new In-Memory technology and saw on what the Buffer Pool Extension can help in keep a stable environment, and finally, the part 3 showed how to implement the Buffer Pool Extension in your SQL Server 2014 system.

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Murilo Miranda

Buffer Pool Extension (BPE) – Implementing another level of cache

December 30, 2014 by

This third part of the BPE series shows the basics of Buffer Pool Extension and know how to implement and troubleshoot it.

During all the Buffer Pool Extension (BPE) series we have been explaining base concepts related to this new technology, as well as its benefits. We understood how the Buffer Pool works and the main benefits of implement the Buffer Pool Extension together with In-Memory technology. I recommend you to read the previous articles, if you are not familiarized with those concepts, so everything into this article will make more sense 🙂

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Murilo Miranda

Buffer Pool Extension (BPE) – In-Memory OLTP: The Memory Challenge

December 24, 2014 by

In continuation of the previous post “Buffer Pool Extension (BPE) – Introduction to the Buffer Pool”, we will keep diving into the Buffer Pool Extension, this time, talking about another important factor behind this feature – the memory. No, we will not review how the memory works literally, we are talking about the great SQL Server 2014 new feature: The In-Memory OLTP, or the known HEKATON.

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Murilo Miranda

Buffer Pool Extension (BPE) – Introduction to the Buffer Pool

December 9, 2014 by

Introduced on SQL Server 2014, the Buffer Pool Extension came to build up a new layer of cache, helping to maintain the “hot” pages accessible with less effort. With the introduction of Hekaton, the BPE has also an important role. In this article we will explore all the aspects of this new feature as well as understand how it works.

With the release of SQL Server 2014, earlier this year, some new features were released, with a special remark to the In-memory OLTP (Hekaton). Together with that new feature, new challenges were brought. The available memory is, of course, one of the main challenges. More ahead, we will understand better why.

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Derik Hammer

Backup testing with PowerShell – Part 2: Reporting results

October 22, 2014 by

Now that Karla’s restore process is mature, it is time to pre-stage the means of reporting on these events. Two major actions have been taken for each database tested. First a restore operation occurred. The restore operation validates that the backup file is well formed and that there is nothing wrong with the data which would cause a failure. Next CheckTables was executed to thoroughly inspect for data corruption and any consistency errors. Each of these two actions will have their own methods of providing evidence of successful completion. Recall the requirements set by Karla, in part 1 of this series, for the reporting piece. Read more »

Steve Simon

Quick and dirty server monitoring with SQL Server Reporting Services

October 8, 2014 by

Introduction

A few month back, I found myself in a position where the client wanted a ‘monitoring tool’ to utilize on a daily basis to ascertain the status of SQL Server Systems and to continually monitor disk space capacity. Being a typical Monday morning quarter back and utilizing my favorite SQL Server Tool, SQL Server Reporting Services, I came up with the following ‘ah-ha’ solution. Read more »

Sifiso Ndlovu

Columnstore Index in SQL Server

May 28, 2014 by

Prerequisite

The discussion pertaining to SQL Server 2012 columnstore indexing is better explained through theoretical and practical measures. Thus, for the practical measure part – I will be using the AdventureWorksDW2012 sample database. The rest of the prerequisites for a comprehensive understanding of this topic are as follows:
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Milena Petrovic

Inaccurate SQL Server statistics – a SQL query performance killer – updating SQL Server statistics

April 28, 2014 by
As shown in the previous part of this series, inaccurate statistics can degrade SQL Server performance. We described how to work with SQL Server statistics using SQL Server Management Studio options and T-SQL. In this article, we will show how to update SQL Server statistics, what are the updating costs, and when updating is recommended. Read more »
Milena Petrovic

Frequent query recompilations – a SQL query performance killer – detection

April 11, 2014 by
In the previous part of this article, we presented query recompilation basics. We explained when a query is compiled, when recompiled, and what preferred behavior is. We also showed the how to trigger a recompilation using T-SQL and provided examples. In this part, we will focus on detecting frequent query recompilations and frequently recompiled queries. Read more »
Milena Petrovic

SQL query performance killers – understanding poor database indexing

March 31, 2014 by
SQL Server performance is affected by many factors. The most common SQL Server performance killers are poor database design, poor indexing, poor query design, not reusable execution plans, frequent query recompilation, excessive fragmentation, and more. With these factors present on your machine, even adding additional hardware resources might not help, as these SQL Server performance killers can use all available resources. Read more »
Ivan Stankovic

SQL Server security and Policy Based Management – Alerting

March 24, 2014 by
In the previous article related to the SQL Server Policy Based Management feature, we discussed and provided steps and tips to create conditions and policies that help maintaining SQL Server security in large enterprises with a number of SQL Server instances. Now, we are going to go further as once set policies are not much of a use if their violations are left unnoticed. Read more »