Month: January 2020

Sorting in Stored Procedures – Food for Thought

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We know that sorting can be one of the most expensive things in an execution plan as shown below. However,  we continue to do ORDER BYs repeatedly. Yes, I 100% agree that there is a need to sort a results set and that this should be done in the procedure for good reason, but my concern is having  multiple sorts, erroneous sorts, and the sorts that can be done elsewhere. These are the ones that waste resources and can stifle performance. Many of us writing procedures tend to write in code blocks. We write the SELECT, JOINS, FROMs and WHERES… Continue Reading

In Memory Table Indexes

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Now that I have written about In-Memory Tables and Migrating to In-Memory tables, let’s look at indexes and how they are created and how they work within those tables. As you can imagine indexes, called memory optimized indexes are different for these types of tables, so let’s see just how different that are from regular tables. Before we dive into this subject it is VERY important to note the biggest differences. First,  If you are running SQL Server 2014 memory optimized indexes MUST be created when the table is created or migrated. You cannot add indexes in an existing table… Continue Reading

Memory Optimizer Advisor

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Previously I wrote about In-Memory Optimized Tables, in this blog I am going to discuss how to determine which tables could benefit from being In-Memory by using a tool called Memory Optimization Advisor (MOA). This a is a tool built into SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) that will inform you of which tables could benefit  using In Memory OLTP capabilities and which may have non supported features. Once identified, MOA will help you to actually migrate that table and data to be optimized. Let’s see how it works by walking through it using a table I use for demonstrations in… Continue Reading

Memory Optimized Tables in SQL Server

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Sometimes when I try to learn about a concept my brain blocks out everything about it. Talking about anything that uses the “In Memory” concept tends to do this to me on occasion. It’s important to note that “In Memory” is a marketing term for a series of features in SQL Server that have common behaviors but are not inherently related. So, in my next few blogs I am going to attempt to explain some In-Memory concepts as it relates to SQL Server starting with a dive into Memory Optimized Tables. I’ve already written about Columnstore which has vastly different… Continue Reading