SQL Server Execution Plans, Third Edition, by Grant Fritchey

Every Database Administrator, developer, report writer, and anyone else who writes T-SQL to access SQL Server data, must understand how to read and interpret execution plans. This book leads you right from the basics of capturing plans, through how to interrupt them in their various forms, graphical or XML, and then how to use the information you find there to diagnose the most common causes of poor query performance.

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Looking Back and Forward

I took part in a podcast this week, Arrested DevOps. I did one with them once before, almost ten years ago. The host and I were both a little surprised that it had been so long. This caused us to look back a bit. Interestingly enough, ten years ago meant I was only about two […]

Battle of the Query Hints in Query Store

I recently presented a session on the Query Store at Data Saturday Rhineland and the question came up: If there’s already a query hint on a query, what happens...

Keep Sharing

I was given a little reward the other day. My son came home telling me that the manufacturing company he works for wants to build some custom test equipment using Arduino-style controller chips. I've been experimenting, pretty darned lightly so far, with these over the last year. He starts asking me about which controllers I […]

Trust!

The difference between a low trust society (few individuals within a trust circle outside your family and/or tribe) and a high trust society (general trust of individuals beyond immediate family/tribe associations) generally speaking can be measured as the difference between a low tech (low trust) and high tech (high trust) society. Yes, exceptions abound, but […]

PGSQL Phriday #009: On Rollback

The invitation this month for #PGSqlPhriday comes from Dian Fay. The topic is pretty simple, database change management. Now, I may have, once or twice, spoken about database change...

Why Put PostgreSQL in Azure

I’ve had people come up to me and say “PostgreSQL is open source and therefore license free. Why on earth would I put PostgreSQL in Azure?” Honestly, I think...

Distracted

I've found myself to be very distracted this week. Concentration on the task at hand has proven to be a challenge. I'm pretty sure the cause is that I just came off of three weeks of travel, which can be exhausting. Concentration, like so many things in life, requires energy. No energy, no concentration. So, […]

How Does SELECT * Affect Query Store?

I live for questions and recently, I had someone ask me, does using SELECT * affect Query Store. My immediate gut reaction was, hell no. Of course it doesn’t....

ChatGPT Lied To Me

I’ve been seeing more and more noise about how ChatGPT can help with technical stuff, writing code, all that. Well, I wanted to know how best to set up...