Which cardinality estimator (CE) was used in my query?

SQL Server 2008 is reaching end of support this year, so upgrading your SQL Server might be on your mind....

Memory grants 7: DISTINCT (Distinct Sort)

The series is alive! It’s been a while since I last talked about memory grants. Don’t worry, I still care...

Index maintenance freebies

I didn’t expect anything for free in index maintenance. After all, it takes a lot of CPU and transaction log...

Optimize for ad hoc VS single use plans

Yesterday’s post talked about single use plans. The statements I’m using are also called ad hoc queries. The alternative to...

Partitioning 5: The extra partition

So, we’ve set up a table with table partitioning on the RIGHT for CreationDate. We defined 11 partitions, and in...

Partitioning 4: Finding partitioning in DMVs and Object Explorer

Happy Friday! Today’s post will be light on the performance side and instead, I’m going to talk about how to...

It’s always parameter sniffing (Part 2): SET options

This is the sequel to “It’s always parameter sniffing (part 1).” In that post, we identified the stored procedure, and...

Partitioning 2: Getting and measuring partition elimination

In Partitioning 1, my query searched through all 1-12 partitions. Let’s see if we can reduce that number.

Adding the partitioning...

T-SQL Tuesday #111 – Why I blog

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Andy Leonard at andyleonard.blog . Andy asks us, what is your “Why?”
So what is...

Memory Grants part 5: Query hints

Proceed with caution, if you’re thinking of using query hints. This post will specifically cover min_grant_percent and max_grant_percent.
My opinion on...