The Rich Rewards of Tuning SQL

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The Rich Rewards of Tuning SQL

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Tony Davis

Posted Saturday, October 31, 2009 11:36 AM

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Rich Rewards of Tuning SQL

Post #812033

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Posted Sunday, November 01, 2009 10:50 AM

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Excellent points.

I think that you ought to try to tune your code, you ought to go back and refactor it when you can. However deadlines, and time pressures can force you to compromise. At some point, it does make sense to throw hardware at it. In web development, where you can deploy another server and scale out, I think that it's harder to spend a lot of time tuning when for $2-3k you can throw a lot of hardware into 1 or 2 more servers. If a developer costs $70k, then you can eat up $2k of time quickly.

The issue with many web developers is also talent. So many programmers don't know how to tightly tune code.

In SQL Server, you have a single server. To scale up, it's replace a server, often with much more hardware and it can be $10k. So it makes more sense to spend time tuning. There are still limits. You can still spend too much time tuning and not get new development done, but it's more worth it since a new server costs more $$$. You also will run into scale limits. At some point you can't buy a bigger DB server to handle the load from poor code.

In either case, developers (SQL or otherwise) need to learn more about better coding techniques. Learn how to write better code that performs better with less resources.

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Forum Etiquette: How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help

Post #812133

Florian Reischl

Posted Sunday, November 01, 2009 11:31 AM

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Hi Tony

You speak right out of my heart. In my opinion to write faster code is not only a question of skills but also a mindset. To write tuned code is something people should internalize.

The best tuning is proactive and done by the architecture and system design! Tuning when a system became slow is reactive and often ends up with hacks and a "hope the performance is enough, for now" solution.

Greets
Flo

The more I learn, the more I know what I do not know
Blog: Things about Software Architecture, .NET development and T-SQL

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Post #812135

Jeff Moden

Posted Saturday, July 31, 2010 7:56 PM

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I know this is an old post but I had to say "Hear Here!" to it. Great post Tony. Phil is absolutely correct about how even the worst code on certain challenges simply blows away what a lot of folks buy hotter iron for... and the hotter iron frequently doesn't work at all.

Here's to all those folks that go the extra mile in code! Well done! {insert sound of someone clinking a beer and drinking it heartily}

--Jeff Moden

"RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for "Row-By-Agonizing-Row".

First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
Stop thinking about what you want to do to a row... think, instead, of what you want to do to a column."

For better, quicker answers on T-SQL questions, click on the following...
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/

For better answers on performance questions, click on the following...
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQLServerCentral/66909/

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