How to Increase Query Speed by 3 Orders of Magnitude with no Indexes

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How to Increase Query Speed by 3 Orders of Magnitude with no Indexes

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Stephen Hirsch

Posted Tuesday, July 13, 2010 9:29 PM

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item How to Increase Query Speed by 3 Orders of Magnitude with no Indexes

Post #951976

MikeAngelastro-571287

Posted Tuesday, July 13, 2010 10:08 PM

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Yes. Your boss did the right thing and it was brilliant. But couldn't the three hour query have been the result of an inadequate use-case?

Post #951986

Jeff Moden

Posted Tuesday, July 13, 2010 10:10 PM

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A short, sweet, and brilliant article! Bravo Stephen and spot on on all points especially on working with your "customers".

There's only one problem with the scenario you're given... what if the "customers" had said the data had to be "up to date" as in "to the second" (or so)? That probably brings us to the real problem of not having enough time because of poorly estimated schedules or the corner office wants it real bad and, obviously, got it that way or no one really gave a damn when it came to design and coding. It's one of the reasons why I say to always plan and program as if there were at least million rows in each and every table.

I don't know about others but I gave this article 5 stars for the message it carries about working with the customer. By the same token, I could have given this article MINUS 5 stars because (not having ANYTHING to do with the author) the boss actually isn't a hero because he is the one that should have managed things in such a fashion to PREVENT such problems from happening to begin with.

Tell your boss I said "Welcome to the Lucky Rollers Club" and to start taking care of business because the answer could have been a whole lot different. Wink

--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/

Post #951989

steve.vidal

Posted Tuesday, July 13, 2010 10:46 PM

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That's the most misleading title I've seen in a long time...

I was personally interested in the story because I was confronted with a nearly identical situation (Laboratory System with screen taking up to 20 minutes to load). Now in my story, I did improve the query speed by 3 orders of magnitude, not just swipe the problem under the carpet... Wink

How is this article going to help anyone actually trying to troubleshoot performance issues? Sad

Post #952001

mark.schrier

Posted Tuesday, July 13, 2010 11:16 PM

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While it is a cute story, the real meat is in the advice at the end.
1. Get to know your end users as people
2. Learn their jobs and their concerns
3. Don't undertake a design/analysis/programming project if you do not have free access to the end users and stake holders.
4. End users will know significantly more about how they do their jobs and what works than they are given credit for.
5. When an end user has a problem with the solution, always assume there is a problem until your have proof there is not. It is not the end users job to debug your code. Most shops assume there is no problem unless the user can prove it. This approach is fundamentally flawed.

Using these guide lines, projects will run more smoothly and have a much better chance of finishing on target and on time.

Post #952018

Tim Monfries

Posted Tuesday, July 13, 2010 11:24 PM

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Solved in terms of perception only.

Your boss fixed the problem of an overly odourous recycling plant by moving it someplace (or perhaps more correctly, sometime) else. The users aren't around to smell it anymore, but the garbage tip still stinks!

I'd like to know what, if anything, was done to fix the underlying design/resource issues that produced the problem in the first place.

Post #952025

SQLRNNR

Posted Tuesday, July 13, 2010 11:39 PM

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Nice article. I think this is sometimes overlooked as a valid method to troubleshoot performance problems. The point is to provide a solution that meets the requirements without killing the system.

Thanks very much for sharing.

Jason AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
I have given a name to my pain...
MCM SQL Server 2008

SQL RNNR

Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw
Posting Data Etiquette - Jeff Moden
Hidden RBAR - Jeff Moden
VLFs and the Tran Log - Kimberly Tripp

Post #952034

AspiringGeek-40457

Posted Tuesday, July 13, 2010 11:49 PM

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I'm definitely on the side of calling this an elegant solution. When you can define the frame, you can always win. It's not always this easy to do so, but when possible, ka-ching!

Post #952041

Paul Lancaster

Posted Wednesday, July 14, 2010 12:40 AM

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steve.vidal (7/13/2010)

How is this article going to help anyone actually trying to troubleshoot performance issues? Sad

Absolutely agreed! What the article describes is plain common sense; it's doesn't "increase query speed" at all, simply moves the load to a time when systems are under or less utilised. Been doing that for years.

Post #952072

gserdijn

Posted Wednesday, July 14, 2010 12:47 AM

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As of midnight would be perfectly fine

Good stories usually have a happy ending. Not exactly an eye-opener, but nevertheless a good reminder.

We had it the other way round. Every night a job ran to populate a datawarehouse. The customer asked if it were possible to update the datawarehouse 4 times a day. It was - in this case - possible without any problems. Usually the business rules change for the worse.

Dutch Anti-RBAR League

Post #952079

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