Query Store has mechanisms for automatically cleaning your data. It is possible to cause them to break down. While presenting a session about the Query Store recently, I was asked what happened if you set the size of the Query Store below the amount of data currently in the store. I didn't know the answer, so we tried it. Things got a little weird. Bryan Hundley of Marathon Consulting asked the question, so Bryan, this blog post is for you. Automated Cleanup There are actually two kinds of automated cleanup inside the Query Store. First, you have a time-based cleanup. By default it keeps queries that have been accessed within the last 30 days. Anything older, it tosses. If you have the stale_query_threshold_days (all in sys.database_query_store_options) set to 0, it…
The second best thing to questions that people ask is when I sit down to write a book. It's so easy to miss things in the day-to-day grind of doing work. Then, late at night, you're working on a chapter, so you read up on the documentation to ensure that you're not missing anything. Of course, then you find, yes, you are missing something. In my case, sys.query_store_wait_stats. sys.query_store_wait_stats. If you follow the link above, it'll give you what you need to know, but, I figured I'd provide a little more clarity because I think there are some pitfalls in using this data. I love Query Store (do a search to see all the exploration I've done with it). One of my favorite things is the time intervals. It breaks…
I was eating dinner with Hugo Kornelis and we started talking about query hash values. You know, like everyone does at dinner. As we talked about it, I suddenly thought about both Plan Guides and the Query Store. I wondered what happened to the query hash values in that case? Thus are blog posts born. Query Hash and Plan Guides The behavior of the query hash itself is fairly straight forward. The text of the query is run through a hashing algorithm within SQL Server and a value comes out, so these two queries: SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail AS sod JOIN Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS soh ON sod.SalesOrderID = soh.SalesOrderID; SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail AS sod JOIN Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS soh ON sod.SalesOrderID = soh.SalesOrderID OPTION (FORCE ORDER); Result in two different query…
I love the questions I get while I'm presenting because they force me to think and learn. The question in the title is one I received recently. The answer, now that I'm not standing in front of people, is easy. Of course the space is not pre-allocated. Query Store tables are just system tables. They have a limit on how big they can grow (100mb by default), but that space isn't going to be pre-allocated in any way. The space will just get used as and when it's needed, just like any other system table. However, don't take my word for it, let's prove that. The Test Testing whether or not enabling Query Store is straight forward. Here's a query that should give us information rather quickly: CREATE DATABASE QSTest; GO USE…
Here's a great question I received: We had a problem at 9:02 AM this morning, but we're not sure what happened. Can Query Store tell us? My first blush response is, no. Not really. Query Store keeps aggregate performance metrics about the queries on the database where Query Store is enabled. Aggregation means that we can't tell you what happened with an individual call at 9:02 AM... Well, not entirely true. The aggregations that Query Store keeps are actually broken up into intervals that you can control. The default interval is 60 minutes. This means that the information stored in the DMV covers sets of intervals. This means that if, at 9:02AM, you had a query, or queries, that ran considerably longer than normal, you may be able to take a look…
If you're working with Azure SQL Database or you've moved into SQL Server 2016, one of the biggest new tools is the Query Store. It provides a mechanism of capturing query performance over time and persisting it with the database. You also get the execution plans for those queries. Finally, you can choose to have the Query Store override execution plan selection by use of Plan Forcing. I've written about Query Store a few times: Query Store, Force Plan and "Better" Plans Query Store, Force Plan and Dropped Objects Precedence Goes to Query Store or Plan Guide Query Store, Forced Plans and New Plans Query Store and Optimize For Ad Hoc Query Store and Recompile Finding Your Query in Query Store Removing All Query Store Data Monitor Query Performance OK,…
I am endlessly fascinated by how the Query Store works. I love teaching it at every opportunity too. Plus, almost every time I teach it, I get a new question about the behavior that makes me delve into the Query Store just a little bit more, enabling me to better understand how it works. I received just such a question at SQLSaturday Norway: If you are forcing a plan, and the physical structure changes such that a "better" plan is possible, what happens with plan forcing? Let's answer a different question first. What happens when the plan gets invalidated, when the index being used gets dropped or some other structural change occurs so that the plan is no longer valid? I answered that question in this blog post. The plan…
I love the Query Store. Seriously. It’s a huge leap forward in the capabilities of Azure SQL Database and SQL Server in support of performance monitoring and query optimization. One of my favorite aspects of the Query Store is the ability to force plans. Frankly though, it’s also the scariest part of the Query Store. I do believe that plan forcing will be one of the most ill-used functions in SQL Server since the multi-statement table-valued user-defined function (don’t get me started). However, unlike the UDF, this ill-use will be because of poor understanding on the part of the user, not a fundamental design issue. No, plan forcing and the Query Store are very well constructed. Let me give you an example of just how well constructed they are. Let’s…
While presenting at SQLDay in Wroclaw, Poland, on the Query Store, I was asked a pretty simple question, which takes precedence, the Query Store or a Plan Guide? One of my favorite answers to questions is "I don't know" because it gives me the opportunity to learn. Let's figure this one out together. I'll post the code to recreate this experiment within AdventureWorks at the end of the article. I'm doing this because the code for forcing execution plans using Plan Guides can be pretty doggone long (you may need to generate your own XML from a plan on your own system, fair warning). I have a stored procedure that I use frequently to demonstrate parameter sniffing and bad parameter sniffing, AddressByCity (listed below). This query when passed the value…
I love questions. I recently received one about new plans in the Query Store (available in Azure SQL Database now and in SQL Server 2016 after June 1). Let's say you have selected a plan that you want to force. You set it up. Now, let's say the plan ages out of cache or even goes through a recompile. During the recompile, due to out of date statistics or skew in the statistics, you would, under normal circumstances, get a new plan. However, with Query Store and plan forcing, the plan that's going to be used is the plan that is being forced. But, does that other plan, the one not used, get stored in Query Store? I have no idea. Let's find out. The Setup To start with, a small stored procedure…