SQL Server is a very powerful tool and wherever I go, I see the tool being way much underutilized. Some people even don’t know about the features which are already in the SQL Server and they have not used it, like SQL Server Extended Events. Though, Extended Events is a way more complex and detailed […]
Introduction There is a lot of talk about how bad triggers are, how you should never use them, etc. I wanted to spend some time reviewing fact vs fiction and do an objective analysis of SQL Server database triggers (both DDL and DML), warts and all. We will review alternatives and compare them with triggers […]
SQL Server Always On Availability Groups are an enterprise-level high-availability and disaster-recovery feature introduced the first time in SQL Server 2012as an alternative to database mirroring. A set of user databases that fail over together forms the availability group. These availability databases are hosted by the availability replicas and can be readable- writable at the […]
SQL Server 2016 SP1 is released as announced by Microsoft. It comes with a bunch of new features and enhancements as a result of customer and community feedback. In this article, I will introduce you to these new features and enhancements.
The Cardinality Estimator is a SQL Server Query Processor component that is responsible for predicting the number of rows that the query will return. This estimation of the number of rows in addition to the SQL Server statistics will be used by the SQL Server Query Optimizer to create the optimal and the most accurate […]
SQL Server 2016 provides great enhancement capability features for troubleshooting purposes. Some of the important features are:
Introduction If you are reading this I am sure you already know what a deadlock is, but just in case you are new to SQL, a deadlock is when 2 queries are blocking each other in such a way that neither of the two can be completed.
Introduction In this series, I will provide all of the information you need to understand in order to deal with deadlocks.
Have you ever been in a situation where you had to manage hundres of MSSQL Servers? Well, I am right on track here and believe me it does not get easier, even minor tasks take quite the time to do in large enterprise enviornments. One of the solutions I like and I’m using to ease […]
Description This wait type accumulates while Extended Events are being monitored using the Live View feature. As this feature is used for ad-hoc monitoring high values are generally safe to ignore Resolved by DBAs Suggested solutions Safe to ignore Additional research Extended Events: View Event Session Data ⇐ Back to index
Description Caused by lack of available threads, this can occur in periods of high CPU utilization particularly when parallelism is involved, excessive blocking and excessive database mirrors or Availability Group Replicas Resolved by DBAs Suggested solutions Run Profiler/Trace/Extended Events to determine if blocked queries exist. Optimize or rewrite blocking queries Optimize parallel queries Decrease the […]
Description This wait accumulates when a trace (commonly run as Profiler) is waiting for buffers to become available for writing. Not much is known about this wait type as it is not documented by Microsoft. SQL Server by default has at least one trace configured to capture configuration changes and other events that could be […]
Description Very similar to SQLTRACE_BUFFER_FLUSH except this wait accumulates between data flushes. SQL Server by default has at least one trace configured to capture configuration changes and other events that could be useful should problems be detected. Because of this wait will often be present but in low numbers. Generally, it is safe to ignore. […]
Description This wait accumulates when a trace (commonly run as Profiler) is waiting for disk IO to be written to disk. SQL Server by default has at least one trace configured to capture configuration changes and other events that could be useful should problems be detected. Because of this, this wait will often be present […]
Description This wait accumulates when a trace (commonly run as Profiler) is waiting for file buffers to become available. SQL Server by default has at least one trace configured to capture configuration changes and other events that could be useful should problems be detected. Because of this wait will often be present but in low […]
Description This wait accumulates when a trace (commonly run as Profiler) is waiting to be flushed to disk. SQL Server by default has at least one trace configured to capture configuration changes and other events that could be useful should problems be detected. Because of this wait will often be present but in low numbers. […]
Description This wait accumulates during certain operations inside parallel queries. Bitmap, large binary objects and spooling operations can cause this wait type. This wait typically correlates with high CXPACKET waits and CPU utilization Resolved by DBAs and Developers Suggested solutions Use Profiler/trace/Extended Events to determine the query causing the problem. Optimize this query to reduce […]
Description This wait accumulates when a login starts the Dedicated Administrator Connection (DAC). This connection is reserved for sysadmin members in case the SQL Server instance becomes unresponsive. This wait type is uncommon Resolved by DBAs Suggested solutions If this wait type is high use Profiler/trace/Extended Events to identify who is using the DAC connection. […]
Introduction SQL Server Profiler is still a tool used to monitor our relational databases and our multidimensional ones. We used for performance and security purposes. However, in the SQL Server 2016, they announced that the SQL Profiler will be deprecated in future versions.
Introduction There has always been some debate as to whether or not there are real benefits to be gained from accessing the information in the transaction log. This article will endeavor to answer that question by looking at the following: What is the SQL Server Transaction Log? What information is stored in the transaction log? […]
Introduction With the advent of the Information Era, data is being collected on a massive scale. Information Technology systems have made access to this data faster and easier. It has also made it easier for data to be misused.
The purpose of security auditing is to identify all attacks, unlawful or malicious activities which might be taking place on your server. Criminals have become increasingly inventive and as a DBA you might not have considered or even be aware of all activities which may be putting your data at risk.
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 […]
Deciding what method to use to collect audit information can be a task in and of itself. Depending on your needs there are a number of different ways to collect the information. There are settings such as Login Auditing and Common Criteria Compliance that are fairly simple to implement but only collect very specific sets […]
In the world of information, auditing serves an important purpose. It helps to provide an assurance that the data involved is accurate and safe. The level of assurance of course depends on any number of factors including the level of trust in those performing an audit (or collecting the data for the audit), the frequency […]
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