SqlServer-QA.net

I've been looking at this new feature of SQL Server 2008 in order to demo it to customers, and I have to say it's pretty cool ! Along with Resource Governor and compression, it's one of my favourite new features and a good reason to consider an upgrade. Performance Studio builds on the concept of the Database Reports in SQL Server 2005 and the ...

I attended a SQL Server User Group meeting earlier this year and heard a presentation about favourite DMV's. Mentioned in the discussion was sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats and that got me thinking about indexing strategies. I have been involved in performance troubleshooting databases that have used a variety of indexing stategies, ranging ...

I've had one or two requests recently to set up the Performance Dashboard reports on SQL Server so I've created this blog post to step through the process. Firstly, the Performance Dashboard was created to allow customers and support engineers to monitor the general performance characteristics of a server and investigate the cause of any ...

Not alone with SQL Server you would be able to identify the root cause of a performance issue or to monitor any kind of activity. As you may be aware SYSMON (PERFMON) and PROFILER will help to some extent of finding offending processes on the SQL Server for further fine tuning for queries or tasks. Still there is a need to dig deeper on the ...

I'm very excited about the new Management Data Warehouse coming in SQL Server 2008 (which was called Performance Studio at one point), but keep in mind there are lots of available tools in the current versions. One of the students in my class last week put together this list of his favorites. Note that some of the tools can be used together. For ...

I'm very excited about the new Management Data Warehouse coming in SQL Server 2008 (which was called Performance Studio at one point), but keep in mind there are lots of available tools in the current versions. One of the students in my class last week put together this list of his favorites. Note that some of the tools can be used together. For ...

If it is a first time you are deploying the SQL Server 2005 on a SAN, then there are few things you need to be considered that will be raised by installations that are either deploying SQL Server for the first time or are upgrading to SAN from direct attach storage.   The important factors such as virtualization of physical disks, RAID ...

There's a new whitepaper on TechNet that I've just come across (even though it was published 6 months ago!) called Predeployment I/O Best Practices. It's really good - discussing the following: Guidelines for determining I/O capacity Disk configuration best practices and common pitfalls Using SQLIO to determine capacity and ...

While we were in Barcelona we sat down with Richard Campbell and Greg Hughes from RunAs Radio to record a 1/2 hour interview on SQL Server 2008. We touch on a ton of different features (look at the number of Categories I've tagged this with!) and have a bunch of laughs along the way - check it out here. PS There's been a ton of ...

Also see Idera's hilarious new video! ''Life of Simon, SQL Server DBA'' http://www.youtube.com/ideradotcom[Video]