Kevin Hill wants to know where your server hurts:
Everything in SQL Server is waiting for something…this is by design. And most people never think about it…
Until your application is waiting to complete its request, sell the product or provide “the report” to the CEO!
Most SQL Server performance issues come down to one thing: waiting. Every time a query slows down, SQL Server records what it was waiting on. These wait stats are one of the best diagnostic tools for DBAs, sysadmins, and developers – but only if you know how to use them.
Click through for the explanation. Kevin does a great job of proving the 100-level explanation of wait stats to new DBAs, giving them an understanding of what wait stats are, why they are important, and how we can use them to troubleshoot a performance issue. After really locking in the 100-level explanation, it’s a good idea to come back later and understand the difference between signal and non-signal waits (and when that’s relevant), how to track wait stats as part of a query execution plan, and how to correlate wait stats with other measures to find the root cause sooner.