Brandie Tarvin (9/4/2015)
I just came up with the great "customer friendly" metaphor for table contention.One business unit wants to know why production report X was timing out, so I went around asking different teams for the names of reports that they might have been running around the same time. One team said "but this is a report we designed ourselves, so I doubt it did anything."
My response was, "I'm just trying to figure out if the problem was caused by one big thing or a bunch of little things: Like everyone trying to reach into the same narrow-neck candy jar at the same time to get that Reese's Pieces on top, only no one can grab it because no one can get their hand through the neck."
Now it's got me thinking, how have you described table contention to non-IT people?
It's like a fire alarm going off and everyone trying to get through the same door at the same time. It's not always one thing that causes the logjam, it's a bunch at once and then the rest backing up behind them.
-SQLBill