Blog

  • Table Variable Performance “Fixed” in SQL 2019

    Reading the new features for SQL 2019 I spotted this: One of the most popular posts on my blog last year was where I pretty much suggested that people not use table variables: Think twice before using table variables This wasn’t new information when I wrote it, but bad performance due to the use of… Read more

  • Don’t Just Rely on Query Execution Stats for T-SQL Execution

    I recently had an incident where I was looking into the cause of a long running process for a client. It was a batch process that ran overnight, and execution time had been growing until it was now taking over 4 hours. The database involved is a kind of staging area for MI, so I… Read more

  • T-SQL Tuesday #106 – The Trouble with Triggers

    For this month’s T-SQL Tuesday Steve Jones asks us to talk about our experiences with Triggers: https://voiceofthedba.com/2018/09/03/t-sql-tuesday-106-trigger-headaches-or-happiness/ In my post I’m going to focus on DML (Data Modification Language) triggers. Their counterparts, DDL (Data Definition Language) triggers have any number of interesting applications. It’s usually DML triggers however that attract the most controversy. DML triggers… Read more

  • Exporting Extended Events Session Data to a Table

    If you’re a long time Profiler user like me then you probably often take the option of saving (or loading) your trace results to a table for easy analysis. Well, with Extended Events (XE) it’s easy to do that too. Once you’ve opened the session to view the data you get an extra drop-down menu… Read more

  • Using the built-in System Health session

    When Microsoft introduced Extended Events (XE) in 2008, they also gave us a built-in XE session called system_health (though it’s worth noting that in 2008 MS hadn’t yet provided us a GUI for this so it becomes most useful in 2012 and beyond). This is a great little tool. I mainly use it for troubleshooting… Read more

  • There’s Still a Place for SQL Server Profiler

    Follow a few of the SQL Family on Twitter and you’ll mostly see one view regards SQL Profiler, and it’s not generally friendly. So much so that I’ve been tempted to buy this t-shirt for some trolling at the next SQL conference I attend: At SQLBits earlier this year, Erin Stellato ran a great session… Read more