Fabiano launches into a sound technical explanation of the way that the query optimiser works in SQL Server with a mention of Brazilian Soccer stars and young ladies on Copacabana beach. You'll never quite think of statistics, execution plans, and the query optimiser the same way again after reading this, but we think you'll understand them better.  Read more...

In his continuing quest to bring a deeper understanding of Query Optimizer to the world at large, Fabiano Amorim takes a moment to point out a potential pitfall you may encounter. A light read, but one worth persuing.  Read more...

In SQL Server 2005, a feature was introduced that was hardly noticed, but which might make a great difference to anyone doing queries involving temporal data. For anyone doing Data Warehousing, timetabling, or time-based pricing, this could speed up your queries considerably. Who better to introduce this than Query Optimizer expert, Fabiano Amorim?  Read more...

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 collects statistical information about indexes and column data stored in the database. These statistics are used by the SQL Server query optimizer to choose the most efficient plan for retrieving or updating data. This paper describes what data is collected, where it is stored, and which commands create, update, and delete statistics. By default, SQL Server 2008 also creates and updates statistics automatically, when such an operation is considered to be useful. This paper also outlines how these defaults can be changed on different levels (column, table, and database).  Read more...

Fifth in a series of scripts demonstrating a quantitative comparison between the text of two stored procedures   Read more...

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