John Sansom – SQL Server DBA in the UK Rotating Header Image

Posts Tagged ‘SQL Server’

Blog your way to becoming a better DBA

One of the most rewarding aspects of Blogging is that the content you share and publish has the potential to help others in your community but have you also considered that Blogging can actually make you a better DBA? You see the act of blogging itself provides a number of subtle benefits for your professional [...]

Superb listing of free SQL Server tools

Paul Randal pointed me in the direction of an awesome resource list of FREE SQL Server tools. There is an absolute mountain of quality stuff here and I wanted to share it with you all. Free SQL Server Tools that might make your life easier Be sure to me know which resources you use and [...]

Generate a random number in SQL Server

What is the best way to efficiently generate a random number in SQL Server? One of my favourite SQL Server authors, Michelle Ufford recently posted her method for generating a random number, in the post Random Number Generator in T-SQL. This got me thinking and I decided to do a little investigation of my own [...]

DMV Query to identify all active SQL Server Sessions

You may already be aware that I am a big advocate of the SQL Server Dynamic Management Views (DMV’s) and the benifits that they bring to the Database Administrator. They certainly came in handy with a requirement I had recently whereby I needed to identify the IP Address of a specific SQL Server Login and [...]

Performing fast SQL Server delete operations

There have been quite a few queries on the forums this past week with regard to performing fast delete operations on large tables and I wanted to share some of the possible solutions here with you. Fast ordered delete using a view To perform a fast ordered delete, take a look at the article  Fast [...]

How to identify the most costly SQL Server queries using DMV’s

I was investigating a performance issue recently and so thought I would share the T-SQL query that I created with you. There’s nothing new or magic here, the code snippet simply identifies the top 20 most expensive queries (currently cached) based on the cumulative CPU cost. The query returns both the SQL Text from the [...]

What is SQL Server Parameter Sniffing

Have you ever come across a stored procedure that utilises parameters and performs like a dream the majority of the time but for some reason crawls along on some other occasions? Well the chances are that this is down to SQL Server Parameter Sniffing. I was re-reading through the white paper Batch Compilation, Recompilation, and [...]

SQL Server Memory Configuration, Determining MemToLeave Settings

Determining the appropriate memory configuration for a SQL Server platform is a task that all database administrators are required to perform. It is essential to ensuring that an appropriate level of performance can be provided. I am going to discuss some of the additional memory configuration tweaking that you may wish to undertake so that [...]