I just started using a new DMV (one that’s actually an ‘F’ not a ‘V’, as in Function) that gives us more info about distribution statistics. It returns info about the last statistics update date (which is also available with a function STATS_DATE()). It also provides the number of rows sampled when the statistics were last updated. This is ...

If you're reading this, please take one minute out of your day and vote for the following Connect item: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/444030/sys-dm-tran-active-transactions-transaction-state-not-updated-when-an-attention-event-occurs If you're really interested, take three minutes: run the steps to reproduce the ...

Fixes the following issues:Bug with transaction information not working for databases with ''th'' in their nameBug with very large CPU times causing an overflow exception on SQL Server 2005Excessive tempdb utilization caused by large string concatenationAdded host_process_id to additional_info collection

Hide databases from users who shouldn't be able to see them This is a long-standing request from Erland Sommarskog which I've highlighted in previous digests. But the underlying problem keeps coming up in multiple venues, so I thought it would be good to call attention to the item one more time. Some will argue that the contained database feature ...

As with every new major milestone, one of the first things I do is check out what has changed under the covers. Since RC0 was released yesterday, I've been poking around at some of the DMV and other system changes. Here is what I have noticed: New objects in RC0 that weren't in CTP3Quick summary: We see a bunch of new aggregates for use with ...

If you have access to both a CTP3 instance and a CTP1 instance, and the CTP3 instance can see the CTP1 instance, you can run all of these queries simply by creating a linked server on the CTP3 instance that references the CTP1 instance (and be sure to run in the context of master). I named this linked server ''OlderCTP'' so you will see that ...

If you're not OCD about prefixing every single column in a query, this is one that might bite you. Today you might have code that assumes that, because database_id is in sys.dm_exec_requests but not in sys.dm_exec_sessions, you don't need to prefix database_id in the following example:SELECT TOP (1)   s.session_id,   ...

Contains fixes for a couple of minor bugs that existed in v11.00.

This week we're going to take a look at issues with filtered indexes. This feature was a very welcome addition in SQL Server 2008 and has enjoyed widespread usage if conversations on twitter and forums are any indication. But their implementation is not perfect - bugs in SSMS and numerous restrictions on their use have certainly reduced their ...

This week we're going to look at some issues involving tempdb... Provide a tempdb per database #176241 : Eliminating TempDb By Adding Temp Filegroup to Each Database#281202 : multiple tempdb For these two requests, I am hoping that the Contained Databases feature (which I've talked about multiple times) will get to this capability in the ...