Continuing with my takeaways from SQLCon and FabCon Europe in Barcelona, let’s talk about something almost every SQL Server DBA uses: SQL Server Management Studio.There were several SSMS announcements during the keynote, but the one that’s probably going to get the most attention is this: GitHub Copilot Agent Mode in SSMS is generally available. Now, before you roll your eyes and say…“Great. Another AI tool that can write a SELECT statement.” This is a little more interesting than that. It’s Not Just Generating T-SQL. What caught my attention about Agent Mode is the ability to work through multi-step database problems. According to the announcement, Agent Mode can use context across…
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No Scooby-Doo story is complete without footprints leading to a hidden passage. In SQL Server 2025, those footprints point us straight toward the next big feature: optimized locking. And like any good sleuth, we’re going to follow the trail step by step. But first, flip the levers that open the secret door: Turn on ADR before you hunt. Think of Accelerated Database Recovery (ADR) as the latch that unlocks the passage. You must enable ADR before you can enable optimized locking. (And if you ever need to turn ADR off, you’ll have to disable optimized locking first—no sneaking out the window!) RCSI = brighter flashlight. For the biggest win, enable…
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Over the years, I’ll admit, SQL Server has come a long way in making life easier for database administrators and with each version it keeps getting better and better. The installation process bakes in more best practices than ever, default settings are smarter, and cloud offerings like Azure SQL and managed instances take a lot of the heavy lifting off our plates. Backups, high availability, patching—all of these are more streamlined than they used to be. It’s tempting to think this means DBAs don’t need to know the “nuts and bolts” or “how things work under the hood” anymore. But here’s the problem: I am seeing a real gap in…
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SQL Server performance issues often stem from easy fix bottle necks that can be fixed with the right tuning strategies. This short blog will focus on the DELETE statement. The problem with DELETE statements is that it requires excessive logical reads and consumes transaction log space, even in simple recovery mode. DELETE is a row-based operation and generates large number of logical reads whereas TRUNCATE removes all of the rows of a table or partition at the storage, for a much faster and more efficient operation. Both DELETE and TRUNCATE remove data from a table, but they behave differently in terms of performance, recovery, logging, and rollback capabilities. The issue…
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Had a great time talking with Richard on RunAsRadio about Query Performance Tuning Strategies, check it out. How do you keep your SQL queries fast? Richard chats with Monica Rathbun about her approaches to SQL Server query tuning. Monica starts with defining the problem – how do we know that the database is the performance bottleneck? The conversation dives into measuring query performance and the power of Query Store, but only on SQL Server 2016 and above, so get upgrading! Entity Framework is a standard tool for developers to automate access to SQL. Still, it can generate some pretty ugly queries, and Monica talks about different ways to improve them,…
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Synonyms inside SQL Server are one of those useful but forgotten features. A synonym is a database level object that allows you to provide an alternative name for another database object such as a view, user defined table, scalar function, stored procedure, inline table valued function (tvf), or extended stored procedure. They can also be used for CLR Assembly related stored procedures, CLR tvf, CLR scalar functions or even CLR aggregate functions. There are many practical uses for synonyms, and I’ll explain how to create them and some use cases. Read the full article here at Red-Gate’s Simple Talk
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Performance Monitoring Tools In this second post we are diving into what tools you can use to capture the important performance metrics you need to gather for baselining your environment. Be sure to read part one first. Performance Monitor First let’s start with what comes native to Windows Server platform, whether you are on an Azure SQL Virtual Machine or your standard SQL Server instance install on premises you have a native tool, called Performance Monitor (affectionately known to most as PerfMon). This reliable tool allows you to easily monitor performance metrics through a Graphical User Interface (GUI), by selecting performance counters for the operating system as well as installed applications such as SQL Server. It…
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I regularly deliver a presentation called “Mastering TempDB”. I wrote it based on what I wish I knew about TempDB “growing up” in my career as a SQL Server DBA. It really is a breakdown of what TempDB is, how it is used, what problems actually occur within it, and how to best configure it. With advice from my colleagues, I have decided to break that down into this article to educate you. What is TempDB? TempDB is a global resource used by everyone and everything inside SQL Server. Think of it as a dumping ground for anything that doesn’t fit in memory. It is always database_id number two in…
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Knowing your data is very important when it comes to writing code. Now I’ll admit that I am very far from being a developer, however as a DBA, I spend much of my day’s performance tuning code. In doing so, I get to see many ways code can introduce excess database reads. One of the most recent things I have come across has to do with NULLs. The environment I was working in had no default values in their table design, so it was riddled with NULL values. Over the years they had implemented coding standards to try and mitigate these NULL values within their code. In every column search…
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Does your server look like this? Many of us have inherited a SQL Server instance that has all SQL Services installed. Someone, maybe even you, went through the SQL Server installation process using GUI and checked every option available to them, then just clicked Next, Next, Next and then Install. If this is your environment, please take a moment to evaluate and decide which of these services that are required. From a performance tuning perspective, it is important to only run the services that you need. Each of these services can consume resources on your server. Sharing resources reduces what youe SQL Server Engine, SQL Server (MSSQLSERVER) or named instance…
