Statistics update date is stored as metadata on the SQL instance, but after a great deal of research against the system tables and DMVs I realized that this information is not readily exposed to the DBA via any other method than the STATS_DATE() function or the SQL Server Management Studio graphical user interface (GUI).  Read more...

Are you rebuilding statistics twice on your tables? Longtime expert, Andy Warren, shows why you might be asking more work of your SQL Server than is required.  Read more...

When is it okay to let SQL Server to make a statistic for columns in your queries, and when should you take those statistics and make an index out of them? What I do is to test all of my procs, and if they generate system statistics (_WA_SYS%), then I add an index to the table for the column in the statistic. But is this a good practice?  Read more...