There are several things that you can do to improve performance by throwing more hardware at the problem, but usually the place you get the most benefit from is when you tune your queries. One common problem that exists is the lack of indexes or incorrect indexes and therefore SQL Server has to process more data to find the records that meet the queries criteria. These issues are known as Index Scans and Table Scans.
2025-06-06
Do you wonder why SQL Server ignores an index? Do you think about how you can deal with this problem? When you include too many columns in a query you decrease index selectivity. So, if you write a query like “Select * From …” the chance of choosing your nonclustered index will decrease.
2025-03-03
Learn how to implement data partitioning within Microsoft Fabric to improve performance for Lakehouses, Warehouses, and Pipelines.
2025-01-13
Learn about SQL Server OPTION RECOMPILE and if used on simple, frequently executed queries if it causes excessive CPU usage.
2025-01-08
Every SQL Server developer has heard it: "Don't use NOLOCK in production!" But this common rule isn't as simple as it seems. Sometimes, what seems like a bad practice can actually be the right choice. Let's explain what NOLOCK really does in simple terms. When you use NOLOCK, you're telling SQL Server "just show me […]
2024-12-09
5,011 reads
What is a distributed monolith vs. a microservice architecture? Steve has a few thoughts today.
2024-12-06
156 reads
Let’s say we have a couple of update statements we need to run every 15 minutes in the Stack Overflow database, and we’ve built indexes to support them:
2024-11-20
Learn about different ways to improve the performance of full wild card text searches to find strings in SQL Server tables.
2024-11-01
This article will explore how SQL Server chained CTEs might make troubleshooting code harder and whether you should stop using CTEs altogether.
2024-10-23
Learn how to use the SQL Server Query Store to find CPU-intensive queries and how you can use Query Store to resolve these issues.
2024-10-09
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I want to use the new BASE64_ENCODE() function in SQL Server 2025, but return a string that isn't large type. What is the longest varbinary string I can pass in and still get a varchar(8000) returned?
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