A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
TempDB is the SQL Server equivalent of a junk drawer – everyone uses it, nobody monitors it, and eventually it becomes a bottleneck you can’t ignore.
Whether it’s poorly configured from the start or getting hammered by bad execution plans, TempDB often becomes the silent killer of performance. The good news? A few targeted changes can make a big impact.
Read on for some of tempdb’s greatest hits. Kevin also has a few quick tips for tempdb.
Comments closedMichael Christofides makes an assertion:
I recently saw a feature request for pg_stat_statements to be able to track percentile performance of queries, for example the p95 (95th percentile) or p99 (99th percentile).
That would be fantastic, but isn’t yet possible. In the meantime, there is a statistically-dodgy-but-practically-useful (my speciality) way to approximate them using the mean and standard deviation columns in pg_stat_statements.
Click through for the code. Michael even covers the immediate objection I have (that the data isn’t normally distributed, so you shouldn’t use the same Z score estimators that exist for the normal). That said, if you’re interested in “p99…ish” then this is a clever approach to take.
Comments closedWith this update, Azure Mirrored Databricks Catalog items can now be enabled with OneLake security. Security at the table, column, or row level can be defined directly in each item, allowing access to be controlled at a granular level. This allows security to be defined directly over the data mirrored into OneLake so it can be securely used by downstream sources such as lakehouses, notebooks, or semantic models.
Read on to see what to do in order to make use of this. It is, of course, currently in preview.
Comments closedRob Sewell has a trio of posts. First up, Rob creates a warehouse:
We are going to use [FabricTools, a PowerShell module that simplifies the management of Microsoft Fabric resources. You can find it on GitHub at[FabricTools provides functions to create, update, and delete Fabric warehouses and other resources. It has been developed and is maintained by members of the community.
Having created a Microsoft Fabric workspace using PowerShell, assigned users to it using PowerShell, and created a Microsoft Fabric Warehouse using PowerShell, we now turn our attention to creating a Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse using PowerShell. These posts all look remarkably similar 🙂 and thats because the functionality they are showing is exactly same..
Just like dbatools and dbachecks creating functions that follow the same pattern makes it easier to learn. This is why FabricTools has chosen to use the same pattern for creating Fabric resources using PowerShell.
And from there is a Fabric SQL Database:
A Fabric SQL Database is a SQL Database that is hosted in Microsoft Fabric. It provides a fully managed SQL database service that allows you to store and query your data using SQL using the same SLQ Engine as Azure SQL Database.
Click through for examples of all three.
Comments closedThere is a lot to be excited about in SQL Server 2025! When thinking about features that may not get as much attention as others, yet will make a real difference in the lives of DBAs, I have selected my top 5 enhancements for SQL Server 2025. These improvements may not make the headlines, but they address pain points we’ve all experienced as DBAs. Please let me know if I’ve left any of your favorites off the list.
Read on for the list. It’s not a set of fancy new features, though there are some quality of life improvements here.
Comments closed