First Impressions

SELECT @@Version
Microsoft SQL Server “Denali” (CTP1) – 11.0.1103.9 (X64)
I’ve been playing with the CTP for a few days (with absolutely no...

A Trio of Table Variables

So, it’s the second Tuesday of the month again, and it’s time for T-SQL Tuesday again. This month it’s hosted...

One wide index or multiple narrow indexes?

Or “If one index is good, surely many indexes (indexes? indices? indi?) will be better”
This is a question that comes...

Come and gone

Or “Plan cache monitoring – insert and remove”
Previously I took a look at the CacheHit and CacheMiss events to see how...

Hit and miss

Or “Monitoring plan cache usage”
For people interested in the details of how SQL is using and reusing execution plans, there...

Does a missing data file send a database suspect?

Short answer: No
I keep seeing this come up on various forums when people ask what makes a database go suspect...

DBA Hell

On the first day of DBA hell, the server gave to me

A database with damaged system tables and no good...

In, Exists and join – a roundup

Over the last several months I’ve had a look at IN, Exists, Join and their opposites to see how they...

Left outer join vs NOT EXISTS

And to wrap up the miniseries on IN, EXISTS and JOIN, a look at NOT EXISTS and LEFT OUTER JOIN...

The Root of all Evil

Or “Shot gun query tuning”
There have been a fair few forums questions in recent months asking for help in removing...