PASS Summit 2013 - You Ain't From Around Here Are Ya?

I know what y'all are thinkin', what's Charlotte got to do with SQL Server?  Just hear me out.  There's a...

Are You the Primary Replica?

UPDATED -- Jul 3, 2015 -- To verify database exists, per comments by Konstantinos Katsoridis. Thanks for finding the bug!

In my recent adventures...

Setup an Availability Group with Multiple Subnets in VMware Workstation

Before we get started, I want to make it clear this is NOT how you would normally configure all these...

VMware vSphere Storage Performance - Thick vs Thin Provisioning

Industry experts will tell you that virtualization of your environment is not done to improve performance, it's done to make...

Investigating Plan Cache Bloat

SQL Server includes a DMV, sys.dm_exec_query_stats, that returns performance statistics for each query plan cached in memory.  However, it can...

An Alternative to SELECT COUNT(*) for Better Performance

Sometimes rapid code development doesn't always produce the most efficient code.  Take the age old line of code SELECT COUNT(*)...

Merging SQL Server and Softball Just for Fun

With opening day of Major League Baseball season finally here, I thought I’d take the time to cover two of...

Use Powershell to Pick Up what Database Mirroring Leaves Behind

Database mirroring has been around since SQL Server 2005, and it's turned out to be an excellent step up from...

T-SQL Tuesday #40 - Proportional Fill within a Filegroup

T-SQL Tuesday #40 is underway, and this month's host is Jennifer McCown (blog|twitter).  The topic is about File and Filegroup...

Dealing with a Fragmented Heap

Just for the record, this happens to be one of my favorite interview questions to ask candidates.

At some point in...