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Several SQL Server Performance Tuning how to's

Note: This blog post is from 2008. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Need to solve problems with SQL Server performance? Here are several resources that can help:

Some of these offer knowledge and understanding, others offer specific steps to follow. Most offer links to still other resources (including often specific entries in Books Online).

Note that some may be written more to those still running SQL Server 7 (less likely) or SQL Server 2000 (not so unlikely), though many do cover SQL Server 2005 as well. Just keep this in mind while reading, both if some step doesn't seem to follow, and also in case it may be that some setting that suits one release may not suit another. In fact, some of the resources specifically discuss how things have changed in later releases, and how in fact some settings or techniques for older releases may be very different for later ones. All this just calls for discernment while you read.

These are all in addition to a couple of entries I wrote back in April (starting here) on some other advanced tools and techniques for diagnosing SQL Server problems.

Sometimes CF gets blamed for problems when in fact the problem is in the DBMS--and it's not always a problem due to the SQL being sent from CF. Sometimes the same code can run very differently one time than another. In that case, you really need to understand why this is happening. I hope the resources above may help you. If you ever want direct assistance, this is one of the things I help people with in my available consulting.

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Comments
Charlie, there's a free product call sql spy that i use occasionally. it looks like it is being placed into another product, but you can still download it at hybridx.com. it's nothing that couldn't be done with the right sql, but it's packaged up in a decent gui that makes neat charts and exports to html/xml. it is definitely worth the money and then some.
# Posted By shag | 10/13/08 5:49 PM
Shag, Thanks for sharing that It's too bad that the tool is no longer available at the Hybridx site. They list it, but the page for it is essentially blank. I was however able to find an old version of the page via the trusty Internet Wayback machine, at:

http://web.archive.o...

And it offers a link to the download (the link to the help file offered doesn't work, but perhaps it's embedded in the EXE as well.) I've not yet installed it but hope to soon.

It's interesting that you thought to point out a monitoring tool here. I didn't really mean for the entry to go down that road (I was focused on information resources). Still, thanks.

And I'll also point readers to a section of my CF411 site where I do indeed list several other Database Monitoring Tools:

http://www.cf411.com...
As always Charlie, there is some good stuff here, thanks for that. I also think that hard drive specification is important. Try not to have logs writing to a multiple drives in a RAID 5-6 array for instance. Also, I believe it is good to think of databases as essentially two different entities OLTP (the kind we are all most familiar with for transactional processing) and OLAP (a different schema suited to heavy-duty reporting).
Sure, Mike, and thanks for the input. I guess I'd say that, yes, there is really a whole world of possible challenges and opportunities for improvement within the database. We can't begin to touch on it here. I just wanted to share a few examples of available resources for SQL Server in particular, as I'd found them for a client.

So many CF shops either have no DBA, or the one they have doesn't talk much with the CF folks. We can't expect to turn every CFer into a DBA, and naturally things can differ quite a bit among the various DBMS's, but there are some essentials that most folks should be able to take in, and they'd do well to understand. That's what motivated me to write this.

But sure, there's a whole lot more we could talk about, regarding hardware, software, network config--and all just in the guise of the database, in addition to CF. This entry isn't the place for this, but Mike and many other CFers out there often tarry down the lanes of these worlds, and those interested in troubleshooting and tuning should definitely check out their blogs.
My company recently posted a series on SQL Server tuning that you made find helpful: http://www.entrances...
# Posted By Val | 5/8/13 6:09 PM
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