What is SQL Server database mirroring?
March 15, 2014
SQL Server database mirroring is a disaster recovery and high availability technique that involves two SQL Server instances on the same or different machines. One SQL Server instance acts as a primary instance called the principal, while the other is a mirrored instance called the mirror. In special cases, there can be a third SQL Server instance that acts as a witness
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SQL Server alerts in troubleshooting performance issues: How to create and use SQL Server alerts
March 15, 2014
In the first part of this series, we presented the alerting feature available via SQL Server Agent. In this sequel, we will show how to provide all prerequisites, create alerts, and adequate notifications
Before creating a SQL Server alert, make sure that Database Mail and SQL Server Agent properties are properly configured Read more »
SQL Server alerts in troubleshooting performance issues: SQL Server alerting basics
March 14, 2014Why is SQL Server alerting important?
To be aware of what’s going on with your system and how SQL Server performs, monitoring is necessary. However, just monitoring might not be enough. Being notified about a performance issue whenever a specific SQL Server counter meets a threshold value, or a specific event occurs, boosts monitoring usability. These notifications enable DBAs to be aware of every important system performance change as soon as it happens, and therefore they can act immediately to fix the issue and prevent further problems Read more »
What is a SQL Server disaster recovery?
March 14, 2014
A SQL Server disaster is an event that causes data loss or any serious SQL Server disruption. Causes of a disaster can be numerous: power failure, hardware failure, virus attack, natural disaster, human error, etc. Some SQL Server disasters cannot be prevented. That’s why a good disaster recovery plan is important
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What is a SQL Server failover clustering
March 14, 2014What is a failover cluster?
SQL Server failover clusters are made of group of servers that run cluster enabled applications in a special way to minimize downtime. A failover is a process that happens if one node crashes, or becomes unavailable and the other one takes over and restarts the application automatically without human intervention Read more »
A database back up task via SQL Server Maintenance Plans
March 14, 2014
It is essential to create and maintain backups in any database management system. There is a range of scenarios that confirm this statement. Hardware failures, software or user errors, malicious attacks, or system issues can lead to a corrupted database. Even if your database management systems have never experienced such scenarios, you have to be prepared
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SQL Server Maintenance Plans – benefits, features, and functionalities
March 14, 2014
Any database management system requires constant or at least periodical maintenance of hosted databases. This is the case with SQL Server as well, and in order to make database administration tasks easier for DBAs, SQL Server provides the built-in Maintenance Plans feature
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Troubleshooting SQL Server issues with sys.dm_os_performance_counters
March 13, 2014sys.dm_os_performance_counters
sys.dm_os_performance_counters is a system Dynamic Management View (DMV) that returns one row for each SQL Server performance counter. It’s useful for obtaining information about current performance counter values. These counter values are also shown in Windows Performance Monitor, besides other operating system counters Read more »
Ways to use and execute SQL Server Integration Services packages
March 13, 2014
SSIS packages (SQL Server Integration Services) are a part of the Microsoft SQL Server database platform and a tool for building high performance data integration and workflow applications. It is also a tool for data extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL), and can be used to automate maintenance of the SQL Server databases and updates. Basically, they can be used for moving data, with no transformations, from a variety of source types to a variety of destination types, including text files and other SQL Server instances
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A DBA guide to SQL Server performance troubleshooting – Part 2 – Monitoring utilities
March 13, 2014
In this article, we will present native Windows and SQL Server tools commonly used for troubleshooting SQL Server performance issues. Selecting the right performance monitoring utility depends on your monitoring goals and coding knowledge, as the tools provide different information and have different analysis capability
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A DBA guide to SQL Server performance troubleshooting – Part 1 – Problems and performance metrics
March 13, 2014
Monitoring SQL Server performance is a complex task, as performance depends on many parameters, both hardware and software. It’s recommended to monitor these parameters proactively in order to prevent any potential performance degradation. However, this is not always the case. If the performance degradation happens, the first step towards the resolution is to determine the problem, find out the cause, and resolve the issue. Severe performance issues require quick actions and resolutions. Less severe problems can have a delayed fix. In either case, DBAs should take actions to prevent these situations in future
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SQL Server network performance metrics – The most important metrics
March 13, 2014
Memory, processor, and disk performance parameters are most commonly monitored metrics for identifying and troubleshooting SQL Server performance issues. However, sometimes these are not enough. Even with a fast and smooth running server, a client who accesses the server over a slow or saturated network will encounter delays
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SQL Server performance tuning using Windows Performance Monitor
March 12, 2014
In the Windows Performance Monitor basics article, we described the most important Windows Performance Monitor features, gave general recommendations on how to use it for monitoring and troubleshooting SQL Server performance issues, and showed some of the counters it can monitor
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Windows Performance Monitor basics
March 12, 2014
Windows Performance Monitor is a tool shipped with Windows that can be used to monitor and examine how applications affect computer performance. It can measure real-time server performance and save the measured values into a log file that can be analyzed later. It enables real time system and SQL Server performance monitoring, tracking the performance impact of applications and services, setting threshold for each monitored metric, and generating an alert or performing a specific action when the defined threshold is exceeded
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SQL Server disk performance metrics – Part 2 – other important disk performance measures
March 12, 2014
In the previous part of the SQL Server performance metrics series, we presented the most important and useful disk performance metrics. Now, we’ll show other important disk performance measures
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SQL Server disk performance metrics – Part 1 – the most important disk performance metrics
March 12, 2014
So far, we have presented the most important memory and processor metrics. These metrics indicate system and SQL Server performance, and are useful for troubleshooting performance issues and bottlenecks. Besides memory and processor metrics, equally important are SQL Server disk metrics. Sometimes a metric from one category can be masked by other events and be misleading – e.g. a disk issue can cause processor bottlenecks. That’s why it’s necessary to understand the cause and effect of each metric
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SQL Server processor performance metrics – Part 4 – processor metrics useful for deeper investigation and troubleshooting
March 12, 2014In the previous part of this series, we presented the processor metrics that indicate hardware component problems that can affect SQL Server performance
In this part, we will present processor metrics that are not necessary in every performance monitoring scenario, but are useful for deeper investigation and troubleshooting Read more »
SQL Server processor performance metrics – Part 3 – measures that indicate hardware component problems
March 11, 2014
In the Part 1 and Part 2 of the SQL Server processor performance metrics series, we described the most important processor performance metrics – Processor: % Processor Time, Process: % Processor Time, Processor Queue Length, Processor: % User Time, Processor: %Privilege Time, as well as various total times and thread metrics
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SQL Server processor performance metrics – Part 2 – Processor: % User Time, Processor: % Privilege Time, total times and thread metrics
March 11, 2014In SQL server processor performance metrics – Part 1 – The most important cpu metrics, we described the Processor Queue Length and two most important processor time counters – Processor % Processor Time and Process % Processor time
In this part, we will continue describing important time processor counters Read more »
SQL Server processor performance metrics – Part 1 – the most important CPU metrics
March 11, 2014
In the previous parts of the SQL Server performance metrics series, we described and recommended various memory metrics that should be tracked when monitoring SQL Server performance. Besides the memory metrics, monitoring processor usage and disk performance is recommended
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SQL Server memory performance metrics – Part 6 – other memory metrics
March 10, 2014
So far, we have described the most popular and most important SQL Server memory metrics. Monitoring these metrics is recommended in every scenario when SQL Server performance monitoring and troubleshooting is needed. Besides the SQL Server Memory Manager metrics, the memory pressure can be indicated via the Buffer Manager metrics, as the buffer is the component that uses most of the SQL Server memory
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SQL Server memory performance metrics – Part 5 – understanding Lazy Writes, Free List Stalls/sec, and Memory Grants Pending
March 7, 2014
We’ve started the SQL Server performance metrics series with the SQL Server memory metrics that should be monitored to indicate and help troubleshoot SQL Server performance issues
In this part, we will continue with SQL Server memory performance metrics and present Lazy Writes, Free List Stalls/sec, and Memory Grants Pending Read more »
SQL Server memory performance metrics – Part 4 – Buffer Cache Hit Ratio and Page Life Expectancy
March 5, 2014In SQL Server performance metrics – part 3, we presented some of the SQL Server Buffer Manager metrics. As the SQL Server buffer pool manages data cache, it’s important to monitor various buffer pool metrics as they help identify and solve memory pressure issues
In this article, we will present 2 more Buffer Manager counters – Buffer Cache Hit Ratio and Page Life Expectancy.
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SQL Server memory performance metrics – Part 3 – SQL Server Buffer Manager metrics and memory counters
March 3, 2014
In the previous parts of the SQL Server performance metrics series, we presented most important SQL Server memory metrics that indicate overall SQL Server memory pressure. The described metrics show how SQL Server uses memory and physical I/O to store, read and write data pages. In this part, we continue with SQL Server Buffer Manager metrics and memory counters
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