SQL Server Database Backup and Restore reports

June 14, 2018 by

In the previous articles, we discussed several ways of taking backup and testing the restore process to ensure the integrity of the backup file. In this article, we’re going to discuss the importance of the database backup reporting. This kind of reporting will be designed to eliminate any unnecessary risk that may arise with the safety […]

SQL Server reporting – SQL Server Index Utilization

August 24, 2017 by

Understanding indexing needs allows us to ensure that important processes run efficiently and that our server hardware is not being over-taxed by poorly performing queries. Collecting metrics on SQL Server index usage and missing index needs is critical to making smart decisions. To be truly proactive, though, we need to create a framework that allows […]

All about SQL Server spinlocks

August 23, 2017 by

As discussed in the article All about latches in SQL Server, spinlocks are also a special form of locks that SQL Server uses to protect data. Spinlocks are lightweight objects used by the SQL Server Operating System (SQLOS) to protect data structure access. To understand, properly, the difference between latches and spinlocks and why the […]

Implementing Different Calendars in Reporting

May 11, 2017 by

Introduction There is a common need in reporting to aggregate or return data that is crunched based on date attributes. Calendars themselves can vary and provide differing insight into a business, data, and finance. They also assist in taking the intrinsically messy Gregorian calendar and making it easier to work with.

Implementing and Using Calendar Tables

March 24, 2017 by

Introduction There is a common need in reporting to aggregate or return data that is crunched based on date attributes. These may include weekdays, holidays, quarters, or time of year. While any of this information can be calculated on the fly, a calendar table can save time, improve performance, and increase the consistency of data […]

Designing a Calendar Table

March 22, 2017 by

Introduction There is a common need in reporting to aggregate or return data that is crunched based on date attributes. These may include weekdays, holidays, quarters, or time of year. While any of this information can be calculated on the fly, a calendar table can save time, improve performance, and increase the consistency of data […]

How to use the SQL Server Database Experimentation Assistant (DEA) tool

February 24, 2017 by

Introduction This is my second article about Database Experimentation Assistant (DEA). Please refer to my previous article to see how to download and install DEA. The Database Experimentation Assistant is the new A/B testing solution for SQL Server upgrades. It enables customers to gather performance insights for upgrades by customers to conduct experiments on production […]

How to download and install the SQL Server Database Experimentation Assistant (DEA)

January 12, 2017 by

Introduction The Database Experimentation Assistant (DEA) is a new Experimental solution provided by Microsoft used to help upgrading databases from older SQL Server versions (MSSQL 2005 or higher versions) to the more recent ones (MSSQL 2012 or higher versions). It accomplished this based in a given workload that is previously captured from the source database […]

Measuring Availability Group synchronization lag

August 9, 2016 by

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 […]

Useful DBCC log commands

June 1, 2016 by

Background When we’re architecting or troubleshooting issues in an environment, understanding how the log is set up and its history helps us identify if improving it will carry significant impacts overall. We have some built in tools that we can use, such as DBCC LOGINFO and DBCC SQLPERF and in this tip we look at […]

Insight into the SQL Server buffer cache

February 18, 2016 by

When we talk about memory usage in SQL Server, we are often referring to the buffer cache. This is an important part of SQL Server’s architecture and is responsible for the ability to query frequently accessed data extremely fast. Knowing how the buffer cache works will allow us to properly allocate memory in SQL Server, […]

Searching the SQL Server query plan cache

February 8, 2016 by

Whenever a query is executed in SQL Server, its execution plan, as well as some useful execution data are placed into the plan cache for future use. This information is a treasure trove of metrics that can allow some very useful insight into your server’s performance and resource consumption. Much of this information would be […]

Data boundaries: Finding gaps, islands, and more

January 6, 2016 by

One of the more difficult challenges we face when analyzing data is to effectively identify and report on boundaries. Data sets can contain any number of significant starting and stopping points that may indicate significant events, such as missing data, important business events, or actionable changes in usage. Regardless of the use case, knowing how […]