Every now and then I work with people that just use the default trace templates available within SQL Server Profiler. Using the default traces and you end up being limited to just some performance stats on procedures and batches that have completed. There isn't exactly an issue with doing this, except that there is so … Continue reading There Is Much More to Profiler
The SSWUG Spring 2010 Virtual Conference is coming up. On April 7, 8, and 9, attend a conference from the comforts of your living room, office, or couch. And while you are at it you’ll get to sit on on some incredible presentations, interaction with speakers, chat with other attendees, make new contacts, lots of … Continue reading SSWUG Spring ’10 Ultimate Virtual Conference
A while ago I had read about the hidden threat of forwarded records. These silent killers are like storm troopers in the bush waiting to get you when you least expect it. And then the other day I saw a T-SQL Tuesday post by Sankar Reddy on (blog – twitter) on determining if your SQL … Continue reading Find Tables with Forwarded Records
A couple weeks back I was asked “How come Microsoft has yet to put TRIM() in SQL?” I don’t really know why there isn’t a TRIM() function in SQL Server. There is an LTRIM for function removing leading spaces. And an RTRIM function for removing trailing spaces. But there isn’t a TRIM function. Let’s be … Continue reading Please, no TRIM()?
I’d like to thank Pam Shaw (twitter as @pamshaw) and Jorge Nunez (twitter as @sqlchicken) for letting me come down to Tampa this past weekend to present at SQL Saturday #32. Jeez, that picture doesn’t make me look very happy. For someone like me that tends to forget to take time off, this is a … Continue reading SQL Saturday 32 — ABCs of CTEs Deck
A few weeks ago I posted a job that I use to track wait stats in the DBA database that I bring to a number of clients. I had promised to follow-up with a couple or three reports that could be used to monitor the values that were being aggregated in those tables. Before getting … Continue reading Wait Stat Categories
It’s a very good question. One that might not seem to insidious. Nothing that should be able to bring down the system and cause failures. Or will it? I’ve been to a number of clients and done it myself before where I start to check out a stored procedure with some performance issues and sitting … Continue reading Does Your Stored Procedure Grant Itself Permissions?
I got to work with deadlocks quite a bit recently. There were quite a few interesting ones that came up that I had the chance to research. Since I like easy, I’ll start with the one that I forgot to grab the deadlock details for. Well, maybe not all of the details… in this case … Continue reading Deadlocks on exchangeEvent and threadpool
If you don’t know where you've been, how can you expect to know where you are going. Seems like such a simple little line and I’m sure many of us can look at history, politicians, and maybe that restaurant review that you didn't heed when it comes to this line. But this also applies to DBAs and more specifically … Continue reading If You Don’t Know Where You’ve Been
Sometimes when I get pulled in to look at a database, I’ll sit down with the developers or database administrators working on the database and get some background on the database. This usually includes pointing on the important tables, an explanation of why some design decisions were made, and some pre-conceived notions about where to … Continue reading To Be Or Not To Be In the Memory Buffer
Strate SQL 