A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
Grant Fritchey knows one way to solve the problem:
A client asked us to tell them when a query ran long. Simple. We have a long running query alert, all built in to Redgate Monitor, so, done. No, see, we like getting alerted when queries run long, but not really long, plus we’re more concerned with just one database.
Click through for the story and how Grant was able to help out the client. Also, read the comments for an entry by Special Guest Star Erik Darling.
Comments closedChad Callihan says sometimes, the best answer is not to play the game:
After some database infrastructure changes related to phasing out the use of linked servers, I encountered issues with a setup tool used to build out new databases and other related features. One section of the tool was failing, and the errors indicated that there were still stored procedures utilizing linked servers, which was causing the problem. I asked myself a few questions on how best to proceed. Does the setup tool need to be updated? Do the related database procedures using linked servers need to be updated? Do the linked server changes made need to be rolled back altogether?
Read on for a proper Gordian Knot solution.
Comments closedEd Pollack takes a peak at some upcoming functionality:
TempDBis a system database in SQL Server that manages temporary objects for all databases on a server. Because it is a shared resource, it can easily become a performance bottleneck., as well as an opportunity for a single database or even a single query to wreck SQL Server performance.Because of this, administrators will often give
TempDBplenty of space and put its files on the fastest storage available. Even with these precautions, it is still possible for aTempDB-hungry workload to hog space and resources that result in latency or timeouts for end users.SQL Server 2025 introduces the ability to use Resource Governor to help manage
TempDBresources automatically. This article dives into the new feature, how to configure it, and how it can effectively manageTempDB-heavy workloads.
Ed starts with a primer on TempDB and Resource Governor functionality, then dives right in. It’s good to see some love for Resource Governor.
Comments closedIt’s been a busy few months working on scripts in my GitHub repo, including adding two new members to the family.
- sp_IndexCleanup: Easily deduplicate indexes — scripts all the changes out for you!
- sp_PerfCheck: A high-level review of performance-related settings and configurations!
Read on to see which other scripts have updates and where you can download all of Erik’s scripts.
Comments closedHans-Jürgen Schönig combines two features:
Regular expressions and PostgreSQL have been a great team for many many years. The same is true for PostgreSQL arrays, which have been around for a long time as well. However, what people rarely do is combine those two technologies into something more powerful that can be used for various purposes.
Click through for the demonstration.
Comments closedSunitha Muthukrishna takes us through a debugging exercise:
Debugging your code is important to identify issues and mitigate them when you’re working with user data functions in Microsoft Fabric. You want to make sure everything works as it should and that’s where local debugging lets you catch problems in your code without messing with the live environment. In this blog post, I will walk you through the steps to make local debugging easier and faster.
Click through to see what you’ll need, as well as the process to debug a function locally.
Comments closedRob Douglas will reboot many things, but not the database server:
I am taking a slightly different tangent. My problem is neither strange or unique – in fact it’s infuriatingly common and it stems from one of the most common troubleshooting techniques in IT. While asking users “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” is a common go to for tech support call handlers, it is not a great idea when the “it” you are talking about is a database server
Click through for a cautionary tale, as well as an explanation of why this usually isn’t the smart play.
Comments closedI have a proper blog post coming out tomorrow for T-SQL Tuesday, but today, celebrate with me that SSMS 21 finally, at long last, fixes the irritating fact that the New Session window in SSMS for Extended Events always opened to the wrong size.
Click through for an example of the bug and how SSMS 21 fixes things. This type of bug is particularly pernicious because there aren’t scroll bars or any sort of indicator that some additional functionality exists, so unless you know that it’s there, you won’t know to look for it.
Comments closedIvan Palomares Carrascosa isn’t just using the median:
Missing values appear more often than not in many real-world datasets. There can be instances with missing values in one or several of their attributes for various reasons, such as human error, corrupted data, or incomplete data collection processes, e.g. from surveys with optional fields. While there exist basic strategies to deal with instances or attributes containing missing values, — like removing rows or columns entirely, or imputing missing values with a default value (typically the mean or median of the attribute) — these strategies are sometimes not sufficient.
This article presents some advanced strategies to handle missing data, namely, imputation techniques made possible through a combined use of Pandas and Scikit-learn libraries in Python.
Click through for three such techniques, including an example of how to use the technique and under which circumstances to avoid that technique.
Comments closedVlad Drumea checks server settings:
It’s not uncommon that I run into a VM that’s configured with something like 6 or more cores with each core on one socket.
Here’s an example how this would show up in Task Manager for a VM with 16 CPU cores configured with 1 core per socket.
Read on to learn why this particular configuration can turn out so poorly with SQL Server, particularly when you use Standard Edition.
Comments closed