04Dec 2017 by Grant Fritchey 12 Comments

Why I Use AdventureWorks for Demos

SQL Server, SQL Server 2016, SQL Server 2017
I know that when some people see AdventureWorks, their vision turns all red around the edges, their blood pressure spikes and they begin to foam at the mouth. I do understand. AdventureWorks, Microsoft's very old, near ubiquitous, sample database suffers from a lot off issues. What's The Matter With AdventureWorks? Let's start off with the general design of the schemas. It's broken up in odd ways. Production has a TransactionHistory and a TransactionHistoryArchive instead of Sales? That doesn't make any sense. What the heck is up with the general database design anyway? I mean, pick on one example. A person can have more than one phone number. Fine. But, what about people who share phone numbers like that ancient land line in my house that is only EVER used by…
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27Nov 2017 by Grant Fritchey 6 Comments

Database Fundamentals #15: Modifying Data With T-SQL

Database Fundamentals, SQL Server, SQL Server 2016, SQL Server 2017
The preferred method for modifying your data within a database is T-SQL. While the last Fundamentals post showed how to use the GUI to get that done, it's not a very efficient mechanism. T-SQL is efficient. UPDATE The command for updating information in your tables is UPDATE. This command doesn’t work the same way as the INSERT statement. Instead of listing all the columns that are required, meaning columns that don’t allow for NULL values, you can pick and choose the individual columns that you want to update. The operation over-writes the information that was stored in the column with new information. In addition to defining the table and columns you want to update, you have to tell SQL Server which rows you’re interested in updating. This introduces the WHERE…
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20Nov 2017 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Get That Profiler Feel in Extended Events

SQL Server, SQL Server 2016, SQL Server 2017
I know. You love Profiler. I hear you. You're wrong, but that's OK. Kidding... mostly. Unfortunately though, I think a lot of what passes for issues and problems with Extended Events is actually a lack of knowledge about how they work. Let's take an example and run with it. No Grid in Extended Events One of the pushbacks I hear about using Extended Events is that the Live Data GUI just doesn't have that neat Profiler grid output. Instead you see a list of events in the top pane and then you have to look at the details in the bottom pane. It looks like this out of the gate: You're right. That's a royal pain. That's it. Toss Extended Events. Back to Profiler. Well, hang on a second. Let's…
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15Aug 2017 by Grant Fritchey 11 Comments

Bad Parameter Sniffing Decision Flow Chart

SQL Server, SQL Server 2016
Lots of people are confused by how to deal with bad parameter sniffing when it occurs. In an effort to help with this, I'm going to try to make a decision flow chart to walk you through the process. This is a rough, quite rough, first draft. I would love to hear any input. For this draft, I won't address the things I think I've left out. I want to see what you think of the decision flow and what you think might need to be included. Click on it to embiggen. Thanks to the attendees at my SQLSaturday Louisville pre-con for the great questions and the inspiration to get this done. Thank you in advance for any and all feedback.
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01Aug 2017 by Grant Fritchey 16 Comments

There Is a Magic Button, a Rant

SQL Server, SQL Server 2016, T-SQL
OK guys. I think it's way past time. A bunch of us have been keeping a secret from the rest of you. We know something that you don't. I don't think we should hide this secret from the world any more. Illuminati? Incompetents. Free Masons? I am one, so I already know all those secrets. Bilderbergers, Cthulhu Cultists, MKUltra, New World Order, Rotarians? All of these are nothing compared to the vast conspiracy that I'm about to reveal. We need to just unveil the magic "Run Really Fast" button. We've been keeping that sucker a secret forever. It's been tough. Every so often some unauthorized person almost finds it or a "query tuning expert" (as if that was a real thing) tries to reveal it. But we've kept it secret…
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13Mar 2017 by Grant Fritchey 10 Comments

Why You Should Change the Cost Threshold for Parallelism

SQL Server, SQL Server 2016
I've written several times about the Cost Threshold for Parallelism and it's relationship to your execution plans, how to determine your execution plan cost, and even how to decide what value to set your Cost Threshold to. What I haven't explicitly addressed in extremely clear terms is why you should adjust your Cost Threshold for Parallelism. There are two reasons to modify this value. Cost Threshold for Parallelism Default Value The primary reason to change the Cost Threshold for Parallelism is because the default value is not a good choice for the vast majority of systems. The default value is 5. This means that when a query has an estimated cost greater than 5, it may get a parallel execution plan. Microsoft set the default value for the Cost Threshold…
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28Feb 2017 by Grant Fritchey 19 Comments

Determining the Cost Threshold for Parallelism

SQL Server, SQL Server 2016
In the previous post, I showed how you can get full listings of your execution plan costs. Knowing what the values you're dealing with for the estimated costs on your execution plans can help you determine what the Cost Threshold on your system should be. However, we don't want to just take the average and use that. You need to understand the data you're looking at. Let's explore this just a little using R. Mean, Median, Range and Standard Deviation I've used the queries in the previous blog post to generate a full listing of costs for my plans. With that, I can start to query the information. Here's how I could use R to begin to explore the data: library("RODBC", lib.loc="~/R/win-library/3.2") query <- "SELECT * FROM dbo.QueryCost;" dbhandle <-…
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20Feb 2017 by Grant Fritchey 12 Comments

Estimated Costs of All Queries

SQL Server, SQL Server 2016
One question constantly comes up; What should the Cost Threshold for Parallelism be? The default value of 5 is pretty universally denigrated (well, not by Microsoft, but by most everyone else). However, what value should you set yours to? What Do Your Plans Cost? I have a question right back at you. What do your plans currently cost? Let's say, for argument's sake, that all your plans have an estimated cost (and all plan costs are estimates, let's please keep that in mind, even on Actual plans) value of 3 or less. Do you need to adjust the cost threshold in this case? Probably not. But the key is, how do you look at the costs for your plans? Unfortunately, there isn't a property in a DMV that shows this value. Instead,…
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23Jan 2017 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

Data About Execution Plans

SQL Server, SQL Server 2016
If you look at the Properties for the first operator of a graphical execution plan, you get all sorts of great information. I've talked about the data available there and how important it is in this older post. Checking out the properties of a plan you're working on is a fundamental part of tuning that plan. What happens when you don't know which plan you should be working on? What do you do, for example, if you want to see all the plans that are currently using ARITHABORT=FALSE or some other plan affecting setting? The "easy" answer to this question is to run an XQuery against the XML of the query plan itself. You can identify these properties and retrieve the appropriate values from within the plan. However, XQuery consumes quite a…
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