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• Memory from Every Angle

  It seems like questions always come up about how to monitor memory. But each time the question comes up, it’s slightly different. Here’s a sort of FAQ for memory questions: 1. How can I figure out memory and CPU consumption by database? a. In SQL Server Read More... Posted Tuesday, October 14, 2008 12:07 PM by KKline | 3 Comments Filed under: Internals, Performance, Troubleshooting

• 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

• SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD

  You might encounter a situation, under a very heavy workload, where processing for certain transactions starts out very efficiently, but over time becomes much less efficient. A good place to start troubleshooting is, of course, PerfMon. But PerfMon can Read More... Posted Wednesday, May 14, 2008 12:06 PM by KKline | 0 Comments Filed under: Internals, Performance, Troubleshooting, Wait States

• NUMA AND TCP PORT AFFINITY

  If you’ve ever taken the time to read http://www.tpc.org/results/FDR/TPCC/hp_orca1tb_win64_fdr.pdf , you might find a bit in there that’s confusing. "Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition 64-bit Service Pack 1 was configured to utilize "soft NUMA", Read More... Posted Thursday, April 24, 2008 12:56 PM by KKline | 0 Comments Filed under: 64-bit, Internals, NUMA, Performance

• 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: Internals, SQL Programming, Tips

• The Most Important Performance Monitor Counters for SQL Server

  If you're well-versed in using PerfMon, I'd like to hear about the counters that you use regularly and what constitutes a good or bad value. However, it's a rare individual who knows their way around PerfMon and its multitude of performance objects and Read More... Posted Friday, March 28, 2008 3:18 PM by KKline | 14 Comments Filed under: Best Practices, Internals, Performance

• What's Exciting in SQL Server 2008?

  If you'd like a quick rundown on what I think is most interesting in SQL Server 2008, check out my new white paper at: http://info.quest.com/KKBlog_WorththeWait_WhitePaper_KKline Enjoy! -Kevin Read More... Posted Friday, February 08, 2008 12:51 PM by KKline | 3 Comments Filed under: Internals, Releases

• SQLDumper

  SQLDumper is an internally called process that can produce a stack dump in mini, full, and filtered formats. Learn more about it here... Read More... Posted Thursday, December 20, 2007 2:18 PM by KKline | 13 Comments Filed under: Internals

• 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: Internals, SQL Programming, 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: Internals, SQL Programming, 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: Internals, Performance, Tips