For this session, I’m relying on a mixture of previous blog posts and new material/demos that I’ll have to write. I’ve written three full presentations, and I usually follow the same pattern.

My method for developing a presentation

First, I write down all my ideas. Then I sort through them to tell a coherent story, and find what demos I need to write. Finally, I polish and polish, to get to a point where I’m happy with the presentation. This is not the final copy.

The final copy is created after I practice the presentation and demos until they’re second-nature. That is the most time-consuming part by far, but it gives me confidence when presenting.

My current list of ideas

The session title is Performance Tuning with SQL Server Memory Grants. This has a big influence on what ideas I want to show.

Here’s the list, in no particular order:

• Include the information on the max size of a memory grant from this blog post
• Demonstrate problems with big memory grants, specifically RESOURCE_SEMAPHORE waits
• What does a memory grant do
• Why is a memory grant requested
• How do data types and sizes affect the memory grant
• Consider including information on the “excessive memory grant” warning in execution plans
• PerfMon counter: Memory Grants Pending
• Resource governor
• Currently running queries
• Small/large semaphores
• Memory grant hints
• What operators in execution plans use memory grants
• Minimum size of a memory grant

Next step

The next step is to work on connecting the ideas to form a story through the presentation. It’s likely that I’ll have to trim that list down, and there’s probably ideas I’ve forgotten.

Please feel free to give feedback as I work on this presentation. Stay tuned!