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• Squishy Limits in SQL Server Express Edition

  Do you use Express Edition? Then you might not know that the published memory limits are not set in stone. Read More... Posted Thursday, March 28, 2013 8:19 AM by KKline | 2 Comments Filed under: Administration, Internals, Tips, Developer, DBA, SQL Server 2012, Express Edition, Memory

• Learn More About SQL Server IO and Query Tuning in These Webcasts

  Join database expert Kevin Kline in two new webcasts for SQL Server users: Storage IO Best Practices and Query Tuning Best Practices. Read More... Posted Friday, December 14, 2012 1:50 PM by KKline | 5 Comments Filed under: Performance, Administration, Internals, Speaking, Tips, Troubleshooting, Developer, Infrastructure, DBA, Transact-SQL Programming, SQL Server 2012, Video, IO

• Microsoft Windows Platforms Blog Watch

  Remote Desktop Services Component Architecture Poster Grab your own poster! A visual guide to key Remote Desktop Services technologies in Windows Server 2008R2 Virtually Free Get the latest update rollup package for the Hyper-V role in Windows Server Read More... Posted Wednesday, July 20, 2011 10:44 AM by KKline | 2 Comments Filed under: Performance, Internals, Interoperability, Tips, Troubleshooting, Virtualization, Tools, SQLMag, High Availability

• New on SQLMag.Com: Update to SP_WHOISACTIVE

  I profiled Adam Machanic's ( blog | twitter ) excellent stored procedure, SP_WHOISACTIVE, back in August of 2010 in my monthly SQLMag column, Tool Time. Adam has been diligent about maintaining the tool and adding new features. Read the details on my Read More... Posted Thursday, April 21, 2011 10:12 AM by KKline | 2 Comments Filed under: Performance, Releases, Best Practices, Administration, Internals, Tips, Troubleshooting, SQLMag

• Old Performance Tuning Recommendations Die Hard

  It’s interesting to me that old and inaccurate performance tuning recommendations seem to have a life of their own. In some ways, old performance tuning recommendations are like the Undead from some kind of cheesy, 1970’s zombie movie – no matter how Read More... Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2009 10:19 AM by KKline | 8 Comments Filed under: Performance, Administration, Internals, Tips

• Architecture Questions - What's Your Opinion?

  Kevin raises several architectural questions from the audience at his London, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen seminars. What is your opinion? Read More... Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2008 1:40 PM by KKline | 0 Comments Filed under: Internals, Speaking, Tips

• WHY ISN'T AUTO_UPDATE STATISTICS RUNNING?

  I find that auto_update statistics in SQL Server is a really good thing. Without it, many third-party applications would simply fall over from lack of preventative maintenance. W ith it, they are able to run for extraordinarily long periods of time without Read More... Posted Monday, May 19, 2008 11:58 AM by KKline | 13 Comments Filed under: Internals, Tips, Troubleshooting

• NASTY RUMORS ABOUT MAXDOP

  You'd think an article called "NASTY RUMORS ABOUT MAXDOP" would have something to do with Britney Spears or maybe Robert Downy Jr, but in that case it'd be total fiction (at least, it would be coming from my pen). So, I was en route to the 2008 Microsoft Read More... Posted Tuesday, April 15, 2008 1:48 PM by KKline | 12 Comments Filed under: SQL Programming, Internals, Tips

• Reading a SQL Server mini-dump

  I was recently trying to diagnose some problems in one of my SQL Servers when I ran across a problem that I hadn't encountered before involving 'nonyielding worker threads'. SQL Server also produced a dump for me to review. Unfortunately, the dump didn't Read More... Posted Monday, November 26, 2007 7:08 PM by KKline | 5 Comments Filed under: Internals, Tips

• More Pages Reported Than Actually Exist in the Table

  MVP Hugo Kornelius once reported that he encountered a situation in which it was possible to perform a table scan on more pages than actually existed in the heap table. Hugo deduced that this was due to a phenomenon called “forwarding pointers”. Why in Read More... Posted Friday, October 26, 2007 9:38 AM by KKline | 2 Comments Filed under: Internals, Tips

• Changing PerfMon Counters on SQL2000 vs SQL2005

  You might have noticed, if you’re a heavy user of PerfMon, that some counters are exhibiting alterations in behavior between SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005. For example, I’ve long used the “Transactions/sec” counter to get an idea of how much work Read More... Posted Monday, October 15, 2007 5:40 AM by KKline | 2 Comments Filed under: Internals, Tips

• Beware of computed columns

  If you use computed columns a lot, you might want to know about some new behavior in SQL Server 2005. Read More... Posted Thursday, October 11, 2007 12:20 AM by KKline | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL Programming, Internals, Tips

• Useful Index Information Scripts for SQL Server 2005

  Italian SQL Server MVP Davide Mauri has released four very useful scripts that simplify the usage of SQL Server 2005 DMVs to discover, analyze, and understand index usage and health. The queries are not rocket science, but they are long and rely on DMVs Read More... Posted Friday, August 31, 2007 6:31 PM by KKline | 3 Comments Filed under: SQL Programming, Internals, Tips

• The Perils of Hyperthreading for SQL Server

  Just a quick note to send a big Thank You to Christoph Stotz of Frankfurt, Germany for his hospitality on Sunday. Thank you, Christoph! Slava Oks has a rather well-known blog entry about how hyperthreading can negatively impact the performance of a SQL Read More... Posted Saturday, August 18, 2007 4:47 PM by KKline | 7 Comments Filed under: Performance, Internals, Tips