SQL Server Consulting, Education, and Training
Thanks for watching!
If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering a 75% discount to my blog readers if you click from here. I’m also available for consulting if you just don’t have time for that, and need to solve database performance problems quickly. You can also get a quick, low cost health check with no phone time required.
ED: I moved up this post’s publication date after Mr. O posted this question. So, Dear Brent, if you’re reading this, you can consider it my humble submission as an answer.
It’s really not up my alley. I love performance tuning SQL Server, but occasionally things like this come up.
Sort of recently, a client really wanted a way to figure out if support staff was manipulating data in a way that they shouldn’t have. Straight away: this method will not track if someone is inserting data, but inserting data wasn’t the problem. Data changing or disappearing was.
The upside of this solution is that not only will it detect who made the change, but also what data was updated and deleted.
It’s sort of like auditing and change data capture or change tracking rolled into one, but without all the pesky stuff that comes along with auditing, change tracking, or change data capture (though change data capture is probably the least guilty of all the parties).
Okay, so here are the steps to follow. I’m creating a table from scratch, but you can add all of these columns to an existing table to get things working too.
First, we create a history table. We need to do this first because there will be computed columns in the user-facing tables.
/*
Create a history table first
*/
CREATE TABLE
dbo.things_history
(
thing_id int NOT NULL,
first_thing nvarchar(100) NOT NULL,
original_modifier sysname NOT NULL,
/*original_modifier is a computed column below, but not computed here*/
current_modifier sysname NOT NULL,
/*current_modifier is a computed column below, but not computed here*/
valid_from datetime2 NOT NULL,
valid_to datetime2 NOT NULL,
INDEX c_things_history CLUSTERED COLUMNSTORE
);
I’m choosing to store the temporal data in a clustered columnstore index to keep it well-compressed and quick to query.
Next, we’ll create the user-facing table. Again, you’ll probably be altering an existing table to add the computed columns and system versioning columns needed to make this work.
/*Create the base table for the history table*/
CREATE TABLE
dbo.things
(
thing_id int
CONSTRAINT pk_thing_id PRIMARY KEY,
first_thing nvarchar(100) NOT NULL,
original_modifier AS /*a computed column, computed*/
ISNULL
(
CONVERT
(
sysname,
ORIGINAL_LOGIN()
),
N'?'
),
current_modifier AS /*a computed column, computed*/
ISNULL
(
CONVERT
(
sysname,
SUSER_SNAME()
),
N'?'
),
valid_from datetime2
GENERATED ALWAYS AS
ROW START HIDDEN NOT NULL,
valid_to datetime2
GENERATED ALWAYS AS
ROW END HIDDEN NOT NULL,
PERIOD FOR SYSTEM_TIME
(
valid_from,
valid_to
)
)
WITH
(
SYSTEM_VERSIONING = ON
(
HISTORY_TABLE = dbo.things_history,
HISTORY_RETENTION_PERIOD = 7 DAYS
)
);
A couple things to note: I’m adding the two computed columns as non-persisted, and I’m adding the system versioning columns as HIDDEN, so they don’t show up in user queries.
The WITH options at the end specify which table we want to use as the history table, and how long we want to keep data around for. You may adjust as necessary.
I’m tracking both the ORIGINAL_LOGIN() and the SUSER_SNAME() details in case anyone tries to change logins after connecting to cover their tracks.
Let’s stick a few rows in there to see how things look!
INSERT
dbo.things
(
thing_id,
first_thing
)
VALUES
(100, N'one'),
(200, N'two'),
(300, N'three'),
(400, N'four');
Okay, like I said, inserts aren’t tracked in the history table, but they are tracked in the main table.
If I do this:
EXECUTE AS LOGIN = N'ostress';
INSERT
dbo.things
(
thing_id,
first_thing
)
VALUES
(500, N'five'),
(600, N'six'),
(700, N'seven'),
(800, N'eight');
And then run this query:
SELECT
table_name =
'dbo.things',
t.thing_id,
t.first_thing,
t.original_modifier,
t.current_modifier,
t.valid_from,
t.valid_to
FROM dbo.things AS t;
The results won’t make a lot of sense. Switching back and forth between the sa and ostress users, the original_modifier column will always say sa, and the current_modifier column will always show whichever login I’m currently using.
You can’t persist either of these columns, because the functions are non-deterministic. In this way, SQL Server is protecting you from yourself. Imagine maintaining those every time you run a different query. What a nightmare.
The bottom line here is that you get no useful information about inserts, nor do you get any useful information just by querying the user-facing table.
Keeping my current login as ostress, let’s run these queries:
UPDATE
t
SET
t.first_thing =
t.first_thing +
SPACE(1) +
t.first_thing
FROM things AS t
WHERE t.thing_id = 100;
UPDATE
t
SET
t.first_thing =
t.first_thing +
SPACE(3) +
t.first_thing
FROM things AS t
WHERE t.thing_id = 200;
DELETE
t
FROM dbo.things AS t
WHERE t.thing_id = 300;
DELETE
t
FROM dbo.things AS t
WHERE t.thing_id = 400;
Now, along with looking at the user-facing table, let’s look at the history table as well.
To show that the history table maintains the correct original and current modifier logins, I’m going to switch back to executing this as sa.
Alright, so here’s what we have now!
In the user-facing table, we see the six remaining rows (we deleted 300 and 400 up above), with the values in first_thing updated a bit.
Remember that the _modifier columns are totally useless here because they’re calculated on the fly every time
We also have the history table with some data in it finally, which shows the four rows that were modified as they existed before, along with the user as they logged in, and the user as the queries were executed.
This is what I would brand “fairly nifty”.
Q. Will this work with my very specific login scenario?
A. I don’t know.
Q. Will this work with my very specific set of permissions?
A. I don’t know.
Q. But what about…
A. I don’t know.
I rolled this out for a fairly simple SQL Server on-prem setup with very little insanity as far as login schemes, permissions, etc.
You may find edge cases where this doesn’t work, or it may not even work for you from the outset because it doesn’t track inserts.
With sufficient testing and moxie (the intrinsic spiritual spark, not the sodie pop) you may be able to get it work under you spate of local factors that break the peace of my idyllic demo.
Thanks for reading!
If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering a 75% discount to my blog readers if you click from here. I’m also available for consulting if you just don’t have time for that, and need to solve database performance problems quickly. You can also get a quick, low cost health check with no phone time required.
This May, I’ll be presenting my full day training session The Foundations Of SQL Server Performance Tuning.
All attendees will get free access for life to my SQL Server performance tuning training. That’s about 25 hours of great content.
Get your tickets here for this event, taking place Friday, May 10th 2024 at the Microsoft Offices in Burlington.
Here’s what I’ll be presenting:
Session Abstract:
Whether you want to be the next great query tuning wizard, or you just need to learn how to start solving tough business problems at work, you need a solid understanding of not only what makes things fast, but also what makes them slow.
I work with consulting clients worldwide fixing complex SQL Server performance problems. I want to teach you how to do the same thing using the same troubleshooting tools and techniques I do.
I’m going to crack open my bag of tricks and show you exactly how I find which queries to tune, indexes to add, and changes to make. In this day long session, you’re going to learn about hardware, query rewrites that work, effective index design patterns, and more.
Before you get to the cutting edge, you need to have a good foundation. I’m going to teach you how to find and fix performance problems with confidence.
Get your tickets here for this event!
If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering a 75% discount to my blog readers if you click from here. I’m also available for consulting if you just don’t have time for that, and need to solve database performance problems quickly. You can also get a quick, low cost health check with no phone time required.
Since I first started reading about indexes, general wisdom has been to design the key of your indexes to support the most restrictive search predicates first.
I do think that it’s a good starting place, especially for beginners, to get acceptable query performance. The problem is that many databases end up designed with some very non-selective columns that are required for just about every query:
Leaving the filtered index question out for the moment, I see many tables indexed with the “required” columns as the first key column, and then other (usually) more selective columns further along in the key. While this by itself isn’t necessarily a bad arrangement, I’ve seen many local factors lead to it contributing to bad performance across the board, with no one being quite sure how to fix it.
In this post, we’ll look at both an index change and a query change that can help you out in these situations.
We’re going to start with two indexes, and one constraint.
CREATE INDEX
not_posts
ON dbo.Badges
(Name, UserId)
WITH
(SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);
CREATE INDEX
not_badges
ON dbo.Posts
(PostTypeId, OwnerUserId)
INCLUDE
(Score)
WITH
(SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);
ALTER TABLE
dbo.Posts
ADD CONSTRAINT
c_PostTypeId
CHECK
(
PostTypeId > 0
AND PostTypeId < 9
);
GO
The index and constraint on the Posts table are the most important. In this case, the PostTypeId column is going to play the role of our non-selective leading column that all queries “require” be filtered to some values.
You can think of it mentally like an account status, or payment status column. All queries need to find a particular type of “thing”, but what else the search is for is up to the whims and fancies of the developers.
Let’s say this is our starting query:
SELECT
DisplayName =
(
SELECT
u.DisplayName
FROM dbo.Users AS u
WHERE u.Id = b.UserId
),
ScoreSum =
SUM(p.Score)
FROM dbo.Badges AS b
CROSS APPLY
(
SELECT
p.Score,
n =
ROW_NUMBER() OVER
(
ORDER BY
p.Score DESC
)
FROM dbo.Posts AS p
WHERE p.OwnerUserId = b.UserId
AND p.PostTypeId < 3
) AS p
WHERE p.n = 0
AND b.Name IN (N'Popular Question')
GROUP BY
b.UserId;
Focusing in on the CROSS APPLY section where the Posts table is queried, our developer has chosen to look for PostTypeIds 1 and 2 with an inequality predicate. Doing so yields the following plan, featuring an Eager Index Spool as the villain.
SQL Server decided to scan our initial index and create a new one on the fly, putting the OwnerUserId column first, and the Score column second in the key of the index. That’s the reverse of what we did.
Leaving aside all the icky internals of Eager Index Spools, one can visually account for about 20 full seconds of duration spent on the effort.
I’ve often found that SQL Server’s query optimizer is just out to lunch when it chooses to build an Eager Index Spool, but in this case it was the right choice.
If we change the query slightly to use a hint (FROM dbo.Posts AS p WITH(FORCESEEK)) we can see what happens when we use our index the way Codd intended.
It is unpleasant. I allowed the query to execute for an hour before killing it, not wanting to run afoul of my laptop’s extended warranty.
The big problem of course is that for each “seek” into the index, we have to read the majority of the rows across two boundaries (PostTypeId 1 and PostTypeId 2). We can see that using the estimated plan:
Because our seek crosses range boundaries, the predicate on OwnerUserId can’t be applied as an additional Seek predicate. We’re left applying it as a residual predicate, once for PostTypeId 2, and once for PostTypeId 1.
The main problem is, of course, that those two ranges encompass quite a bit of data.
+------------+------------+ | PostTypeId | count | +------------+------------+ | 2 | 11,091,349 | | 1 | 6,000,223 | | 4 | 25,129 | | 5 | 25,129 | | 3 | 167 | | 6 | 166 | | 7 | 4 | | 8 | 2 | +------------+------------+
11 million rows for 2, and 6 million rows for 1.
If you have many ill-performing queries, you may want to consider changing the order of key columns in your index to match what would have been spooled:
CREATE INDEX
not_badges_x
ON dbo.Posts
(OwnerUserId, PostTypeId)
INCLUDE
(Score)
WITH
(SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);
GO
This gets rid of the Eager Index Spool, and also the requirement for a FORCESEEK hint.
At this point, we may need to contend with the Lazy Table Spool in order to get across the finish line, but we may also consider getting a query from ~30 seconds down to ~4 seconds adequate.
Of course, you may just have one query suffering this malady, so let’s look at a query rewrite that also solves the issue.
SQL Server’s query optimizer, for all its decades of doctors and other geniuses working on it, heavily laden with intelligent query processing features, still lacks some basic capabilities.
With a value constraint on the table telling the optimizer that all data in the column falls between the number 1 and 8, it still can’t make quite a reasonable deduction: Less than 3 is the same thing as 1 and 2.
Why does it lack this sort of simple knowledge that could have saved us so much trouble? I don’t know. I don’t even know who to ask anymore.
But we can do it! Can’t we? Yes! We’re basically optimizer doctors, too.
With everything set back to the original two indexes and check constraint, we can rewrite the where clause from PostTypeId < 3 to PostTypeId IN (1, 2).
If we needed to take extraordinary measures, we could even use UNION ALL two query against the Posts table, with a single equality predicate for 1 and 2.
Doing this brings query performance to just about equivalent with the index change:
The main upside here is the ability for the optimizer to provide us a query plan where there are two individual seeks into the Posts table, one for PostTypeId 1, with an additional seek to match OwnerUserId, and then one additional seek for PostTypeId 2, with an additional seek to match OwnerUserId.
This isn’t always ideal, of course, but in this case it gets the job fairly well done.
Understanding execution plans is sometimes quite a difficult task, but learning what patterns to look for can save you a lot of standing about gawping at irrelevancies.
The more difficult challenge is often taking what you see in an execution plan, and knowing what options you have available to adjust them for better performance.
In some cases, it’s all about establishing better communication with the optimizer. In this post, I used a small range (less than 3) as an example. Many dear and constant readers might find the idea that someone would write that over a two value IN clause ridiculous, but I’ve seen it. I’ve also seen it in more reasonable cases for much larger ranges.
It’s good to understand that the optimizer doesn’t have infinite tricks available to interpret your query logic into the perfect plan. Today we saw that it was unable to change < 3 to = 1 OR = 2, and you can bet there are many more such reasonable simplifications that it can’t apply, either.
Anyway, good luck out there. If you need help with these things, the links in the below section can help you get it from me.
Thanks for reading!
If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering a 75% discount to my blog readers if you click from here. I’m also available for consulting if you just don’t have time for that, and need to solve database performance problems quickly. You can also get a quick, low cost health check with no phone time required.
Thanks for watching!
If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering a 75% discount to my blog readers if you click from here. I’m also available for consulting if you just don’t have time for that, and need to solve database performance problems quickly. You can also get a quick, low cost health check with no phone time required.
Kendra and I both taught solo precons, and got to talking about how much easier it is to manage large crowds when you have a little helper with you, and decided to submit two precons this year that we’d co-present.
Amazingly, they both got accepted. Cheers and applause. So this year, we’ll be double-teaming Monday and Tuesday with a couple pretty cool precons.
You can register for PASS Summit here, taking place live and in-person November 4-8 in Seattle.
Here are the details!
Whether you’re aiming to be the next great query tuning wizard or you simply need to tackle tough business problems at work, you need to understand what makes a workload run fast– and especially what makes it run slowly.
Erik Darling and Kendra Little will show you the practical way forward, and will introduce you to the internal subsystems of SQL Server with a practical guide to their capabilities, weaknesses, and most importantly what you need to know to troubleshoot them as a developer or DBA.
They’ll teach you how to use your understanding of the database engine, the storage engine, and the query optimizer to analyze problems and identify what is a nothingburger best practice and what changes will pay off with measurable improvements.
With a blend of bad jokes, expertise, and proven strategies, Erik and Kendra will set you up with practical skills and a clear understanding of how to apply these lessons to see immediate improvements in your own environments.
Picture this: a day crammed with fun, fascinating demonstrations for SQL Server and Azure SQL.
This isn’t your typical training day; this session follows the mantra of “learning by doing,” with a good dose of the unexpected. Think of this as a SQL Server video game, where Erik Darling and Kendra Little guide you through levels of weird query monsters and performance tuning obstacles.
By the time we reach the final boss, you’ll have developed an appetite for exploring the unknown and leveled up your confidence to tackle even the most daunting of database dilemmas.
It’s SQL Server, but not as you know it—more fun, more fascinating, and more scalable than you thought possible.
We’re both really excited to deliver these, and have BIG PLANS to have these sessions build on each other so folks who attend both days have a real sense of continuity.
Of course, you’re welcome to pick and choose, but who’d wanna miss out on either of these with accolades like this?
You can register for PASS Summit here, taking place live and in-person November 4-8 in Seattle.
See you there!
If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering a 75% discount to my blog readers if you click from here. I’m also available for consulting if you just don’t have time for that, and need to solve database performance problems quickly. You can also get a quick, low cost health check with no phone time required.
We here at Darling Data strive to get things right the first time, but sometimes late nights and tired eyes conspire against us.
The nice thing about using these on a wide variety of SQL Servers in various states of disrepair is that bugs get spotted and sorted pretty quickly.
You can download all of the main SQL Server troubleshooting procedures I use in one convenient file.
Here’s a breakdown of changes you can find in the most recent releases!
Here’s what got fixed and added in this round of changes:
So now we don’t have to worry about any of that stuff. How nice. How nice for us.
Here’s what got fixed and added in this round of changes:
Turns out I’m not great at math, and sometimes I need to think a wee bit harder. Not at 4am, though.
Here’s what got fixed and added in this round of changes:
The final one was done because when there’s a lot of data in the blocked process report, this query could end up being pretty slow. Why, you might ask? Because calling OBJECT_ID() in the query forces a serial plan.
Fun stuff.
If you’d like to report an issue, request or contribute a feature, or ask a question about any of these procedures, please use my GitHub repo. Specifically, check out the contributing guide.
As happy as I am to get emails about things, it makes support difficult for the one-man party that I am. Personal support costs money. Public support is free. Take your pick, there!
Thanks for reading!
If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering a 75% discount to my blog readers if you click from here. I’m also available for consulting if you just don’t have time for that, and need to solve database performance problems quickly. You can also get a quick, low cost health check with no phone time required.
This May, I’ll be presenting my full day training session The Foundations Of SQL Server Performance Tuning.
All attendees will get free access for life to my SQL Server performance tuning training. That’s about 25 hours of great content.
Get your tickets here for this event, taking place Friday, May 10th 2024 at the Microsoft Offices in Burlington.
Here’s what I’ll be presenting:
Session Abstract:
Whether you want to be the next great query tuning wizard, or you just need to learn how to start solving tough business problems at work, you need a solid understanding of not only what makes things fast, but also what makes them slow.
I work with consulting clients worldwide fixing complex SQL Server performance problems. I want to teach you how to do the same thing using the same troubleshooting tools and techniques I do.
I’m going to crack open my bag of tricks and show you exactly how I find which queries to tune, indexes to add, and changes to make. In this day long session, you’re going to learn about hardware, query rewrites that work, effective index design patterns, and more.
Before you get to the cutting edge, you need to have a good foundation. I’m going to teach you how to find and fix performance problems with confidence.
Get your tickets here for this event!
If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering a 75% discount to my blog readers if you click from here. I’m also available for consulting if you just don’t have time for that, and need to solve database performance problems quickly. You can also get a quick, low cost health check with no phone time required.
Thanks for watching!
If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering a 75% discount to my blog readers if you click from here. I’m also available for consulting if you just don’t have time for that, and need to solve database performance problems quickly. You can also get a quick, low cost health check with no phone time required.
The OR operator is a perfectly valid one to use in SQL statements. If you use an IN clause, there’s a reasonable chance that the optimizer will convert it to a series of OR statements.
For example, IN(1, 2, 3) could end up being = 1 OR = 2 OR = 3 without you doing a darn thing. Optimizers are funny like that. Funny little bunnies.
The problem generally isn’t when asking for IN or OR for a single column, with a list of literal values, the problem is usually when you:
Throw in some additional complexity by joining two tables together, and asking for something like:
SELECT
*
FROM t1 AS t1
JOIN t2 AS t2
ON t1.id = t2.id
WHERE t1.thing = 'something'
OR t2.thing = 'something';
Of course, sufficiently complex filtering clauses will likely turn into case expressions, which I’ve seen cause more performance headaches that I’m happy to recall.
The main issue is, of course, performance, and figuring out what a reasonable index, or set of indexes might be.
To some, the idea of needing multiple indexes on a single table to make one query perform well might seem counterintuitive overkill. To anyone who has had to deal with interval queries, it’s a fact of life.
You might hate to hear this, but proper indexing isn’t enough in every case, and the point of this post is to show you how to rewrite queries so that SQL Server can use your indexes well.
The main problem is that certain query transformations, like index intersection and index union, which may be appropriate, might be costed much higher than a clustered index scan, or a seek/scan plus lookup.
Anyway, let’s get a move on. I can only be a young and good looking consultant for so long, here.
If you have perfect indexes because you’re a perfect indexer, I’m happy for you.
Most people I do work for are not in that camp, nor even in that forest. Some may be blissfully unaware of camps and forests.
That’s okay though, because that’s what I get paid for.
Let’s say you have this index. It’s a good attempt at a good index.
CREATE INDEX
p1
ON dbo.Posts
(OwnerUserId, LastEditorUserId, Score)
WITH
(SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);
It’s a good attempt at a good index because this is the query it’s for.
SELECT
p.*
FROM dbo.Posts AS p
WHERE
(
p.OwnerUserId = 22656
OR p.LastEditorUserId = 22656
)
AND p.Score > 0;
You might look at this arrangement and think: This is my greatest work. I’ll be able to seek to OwnerUserId, and then apply residual predicates on LastEditorUserId and Score.
I mean, maybe not those exact words. You might have other things you’re proud of. Hopefully those turn out better.
If you’re the type of person — and I like this type of person — who looks at the query plan, you’ll be just as sore as a sunburn after looking at this one.
If you’re the type of person — and I like this type of person — who tries query hints when they don’t get their way, you might try a FORCESEEK hint here.
Unfortunately, you’ll remain in your sore state.
Msg 8622, Level 16, State 1, Line 28
Query processor could not produce a query plan because of the hints defined in this query.
Resubmit the query without specifying any hints and without using SET FORCEPLAN.
If you’re keen to play along at home and create and index with Score first, you’re going to get a seek, but a very disappointing one. There is no improvement in performance.
Okay, so what happened?
It’s really tough to get a seek with an OR on the two leading columns of an index. Sure, you could put Score first, but Score > 0 is about as selective as you at last call.
Of course, I mean that you’ll take whatever drink your friend comes back from the bar with. Don’t be lewd.
SQL Server done flipped that all upside down, didn’t it? Score is first, the OR clause is second. What a nuisance.
The problem of course is that we have two distinct sets of predicates:
And the index we have doesn’t allow us to access the data in that way. No single index would, but two separate indexes would.
If we express out query in a slightly different way, that’s easier to see.
SELECT
p.*
FROM
(
SELECT
p.*
FROM dbo.Posts AS p
WHERE p.OwnerUserId = 22656
AND p.Score > 1000
UNION ALL
SELECT
p.*
FROM dbo.Posts AS p
WHERE p.LastEditorUserId = 0
AND p.Score > 1000
) AS p;
Here’s the query plan for that:
It may make more sense seeing this query plan, because you can see the optimizer’s dilemma a little better now.
While it’s possible to seek to OwnerUserId, and then evaluate Score, it’s not possible to seek to LastEditorUserId (regardless of a predicate on Score).
LastEditorUserId is the second key column, which means it’s not ordered in a helpful way for seeks to happen.
To get both sets of predicates to behave, you’d need two indexes like these:
CREATE INDEX
p2
ON dbo.Posts
(LastEditorUserId, Score)
WITH
(SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);
CREATE INDEX
p3
ON dbo.Posts
(OwnerUserId, Score)
WITH
(SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);
This allows for each set of predicates to be evaluated efficiently, even using the original query pattern with an OR predicate.
And we have the elusive index union plan that I mentioned earlier.
The two new indexes are used, sought into, union all-ed together, aggregated, and finally there’s a lookup in the plan to retrieve all the columns in Posts that aren’t covered by them.
The optimizer doesn’t often choose plans like this, and it’s not always good when it does, but these indexes do pretty well here because the predicate combinations are selective.
SQL Server’s cost based optimizer is good at implying many things from the clutches of your calamitous queries, or so I’m told.
It’s quite an amazing piece of work, but it has a lot of problems.
I suppose that’s common with models, whether they’re cost models or runway models. Perhaps I should spend the next 15 years of my life studying runway models to be sure.
For example, if I have a query like this:
SELECT TOP (1)
c.Id
FROM dbo.Posts AS p
JOIN dbo.Comments AS c
ON p.OwnerUserId = c.UserId
WHERE p.OwnerUserId = 22656;
SQL Server is accurately able to figure out that the only number I care about is 22656, because one of the join columns is in the where clause. The query plan looks about like so:
There’s a seek on both sides of the join specifically to a value in each index, which means only rows with matching values will be projected from either side into the join.
And yet, we have a warning that there’s no join predicate. Curse of the summer intern.
Where the optimizer is somewhat less good at such inferences is, of course, when you get OR clauses involved.
Here’s an example! I love examples. Grand things, those.
SELECT
c = COUNT_BIG(*)
FROM dbo.Comments AS c
JOIN dbo.Votes AS v
ON c.PostId = v.PostId
WHERE c.PostId = 138
OR v.UserId = 831;
You might laugh and wonder who would ever write a query like this, but it’s far from uncommon to see a game of mix and match across tables and columns in the where clause.
The unbearable weirdness of OR strikes again.
The entire join and where clause is evaluated at the hash join. There’s probably a good reason for it, but it’s late and I’m not feeling overly charitable in researching it.
If we rewrite the where clause a bit, here’s what we end up with:
SELECT
c = COUNT_BIG(*)
FROM dbo.Comments AS c
JOIN dbo.Votes AS v
ON c.PostId = v.PostId
WHERE v.PostId = 138
OR v.UserId = 831;
The only change is that I’m using the PostId column from the Votes tables instead of the PostId column from the Comments table here.
And would it surprise you that the query plan ends up not being a miserable sofa? I hope not.
The secret of course, is having some good-enough indexes hanging around to help you locate all your precious data. I’m sure I’ve mentioned they’re important a time or two.
Here’s what I have:
CREATE INDEX
meh
ON dbo.Votes
(PostId, UserId)
WITH
(MAXDOP = 8, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);
CREATE INDEX
eh
ON dbo.Votes
(UserId, PostId)
WITH
(MAXDOP = 8, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);
CREATE INDEX
ennui
ON dbo.Comments
(PostId)
WITH
(MAXDOP = 8, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);
And yet, even with all those pretty little indexes, the first query stunk it up worse than the easter egg I’m probably gonna find in a couple months behind a radiator.
Pitting good indexes against poorly written queries is just cruel.
Won’t someone think of the indexes?
Joins with OR clauses fare no better. It’s an unfortunate convenience for those writing queries, because it’s incredible inconvenient for the optimizer.
There are likely some shortcomings that the optimizer team could address in this space, but some join logic is probably more than they’d like to take a chance on.
A simple two-table join with an OR clause would be easy enough, but let’s look at one that isn’t so straightforward.
First, some very generous indexes:
CREATE INDEX
v
ON dbo.Votes
(PostId)
INCLUDE
(BountyAmount)
WHERE
(BountyAmount IS NOT NULL)
WITH
(SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);
CREATE INDEX
p
ON dbo.Posts
(AcceptedAnswerId, Id)
WITH
(SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);
CREATE INDEX
p2
ON dbo.Posts
(PostTypeId, Id)
WITH
(SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);
Look how generous I am with my indexes. The most generous and most humble indexer, they call me.
Here’s what we’re working with from a query perspective!
SELECT
c = COUNT_BIG(*)
FROM dbo.Posts AS p
JOIN dbo.Posts AS p2
ON p.Id = p2.AcceptedAnswerId
JOIN dbo.Votes AS v
ON p.Id = v.PostId
OR p2.AcceptedAnswerId = v.PostId
WHERE v.BountyAmount IS NOT NULL
AND p.PostTypeId = 2
AND p2.AcceptedAnswerId > 0;
What makes this like more of a challenge is that Posts is joined to itself, and columns from each make up the join predicate to Votes.
What makes this kind of stupid is that this is all inner joins, even taking potential row duplication into account from a many to many relationship, it could be simplified from:
FROM dbo.Posts AS p JOIN dbo.Posts AS p2 ON p.Id = p2.AcceptedAnswerId JOIN dbo.Votes AS v ON p.Id = v.PostId OR p2.AcceptedAnswerId = v.PostId
To
FROM dbo.Posts AS p JOIN dbo.Posts AS p2 ON p.Id = p2.AcceptedAnswerId JOIN dbo.Votes AS v ON p.Id = v.PostId
Or
FROM dbo.Posts AS p JOIN dbo.Posts AS p2 ON p.Id = p2.AcceptedAnswerId JOIN dbo.Votes AS v ON p2.AcceptedAnswerId = v.PostId
What’s particularly interesting, but somewhat difficult to describe well to the optimizer, is that any given question can only have one accepted answer, so there’s no many to many relationship with that join.
If we were to use the ParentId column instead of AcceptedAnswerId, it’d be a different story. One question can have many answers (but again, only one can be accepted as the answer).
This is a great reason to normalize your data, and not cram them full of parent/child relationships.
The query plan is quite typical of one with a join that contains an OR predicate. It takes just about six seconds.
If you’re keen on understanding the pattern, and it’s a good pattern to understand:
It is a bit confusing at first glance, because of the two nested loops joins.
The outermost nested loops (next to the hash match) is of the apply variety, but SQL Server does all the work described above in order to reduce the number of times the Votes table would have to be accessed.
Since this is another OR condition, let’s think back to the first query we talked about, where a FORCESEEK hint produce an optimizer error because there was no readily seekable predicate.
If you’re the type of person — and I like this type of person — who tries query hints when they don’t get their way, you might try an OPTION(HASH JOIN) hint here.
But since hash joins require at least one equality predicate, you’ll get a rather familiar optimizer error. The OR condition produces a query plan with CompareOp="IS" in it, which is not the same as "EQ".
Part of the reason why Microsoft likely avoids this specific optimizer search space is that the logic required to get this right is somewhat involved.
Here’s the query I used to get a matching count. For this query, it’s safe to use EXISTS because you don’t need to project any columns out from the Posts table:
SELECT
c = COUNT_BIG(*)
FROM dbo.Votes AS v
WHERE v.BountyAmount IS NOT NULL
AND EXISTS
(
SELECT
p.Id
FROM dbo.Posts AS p
WHERE p.AcceptedAnswerId = v.PostId
AND p.AcceptedAnswerId > 0
AND EXISTS
(
SELECT
1/0
FROM dbo.Posts AS p2
WHERE p.Id = p2.AcceptedAnswerId
)
UNION ALL
SELECT
p.Id
FROM dbo.Posts AS p
WHERE p.Id = v.PostId
AND p.PostTypeId = 2
AND EXISTS
(
SELECT
1/0
FROM dbo.Posts AS p2
WHERE p.Id = p2.AcceptedAnswerId
)
);
If you needed to do that, you would use CROSS APPLY.
SELECT
c = COUNT_BIG(*)
FROM dbo.Votes AS v
CROSS APPLY
(
SELECT
p.Id
FROM dbo.Posts AS p
WHERE p.AcceptedAnswerId = v.PostId
AND p.AcceptedAnswerId > 0
AND EXISTS
(
SELECT
1/0
FROM dbo.Posts AS p2
WHERE p.Id = p2.AcceptedAnswerId
)
UNION ALL
SELECT
p.Id
FROM dbo.Posts AS p
WHERE p.Id = v.PostId
AND p.PostTypeId = 2
AND EXISTS
(
SELECT
1/0
FROM dbo.Posts AS p2
WHERE p.Id = p2.AcceptedAnswerId
)
) AS p
WHERE v.BountyAmount IS NOT NULL;
The query plans are close enough to identical to not show you twice.
Is it bigger? Yes.
Was the query longer? Yes.
But if you’ve been following this series, or my blog posts in general, you’ll know that it’s quite rare that shortcuts and conveniences get you anywhere with the optimizer.
Something I mentioned early on in the post, with an element of obvious foreshadowing, is the use of case expressions in join and where clauses.
While they’re not precisely the same thing as OR clauses, they are conditional logic, which can do a decent job of mangling up performance.
Here’s our setup, index-wise:
CREATE INDEX
p
ON dbo.Posts
(Score, PostTypeId, OwnerUserId)
WITH
(SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);
CREATE INDEX
u
ON dbo.Users
(CreationDate, Reputation, AccountId)
INCLUDE
(DisplayName)
WITH
(SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON, DATA_COMPRESSION = PAGE);
And here’s the query we’ll be looking at:
SELECT
u.Id,
u.DisplayName,
s = SUM(p.Score)
FROM dbo.Posts AS p
JOIN dbo.Users AS u
ON 1 = CASE
WHEN p.PostTypeId IN (1, 2)
AND p.OwnerUserId = u.Id
THEN 1
WHEN p.PostTypeId > 2
AND p.OwnerUserId = u.AccountId
THEN 1
ELSE 0
END
WHERE u.CreationDate >= '20131231 23:00'
AND 1 = CASE
WHEN p.Score >= 1
AND u.Reputation >= 10
THEN 1
ELSE 0
END
GROUP BY
u.Id,
u.DisplayName
ORDER BY
s DESC;
I’ve seen enough nightmare-fuel queries like this to include it in the mix, because I never want to see one of these again.
Just kidding! I want to see yours and fix them for you. Show me all of them. Bring out the whole gang. My soul is prepared.
Here’s the query plan we get from this query.
The only thing that isn’t terrible is the one part of the where clause that isn’t wrapped up in some derived dilemma, which is the predicate on CreationDate.
The TL;DR here is that:
If you’re paying careful attention to row counts, this filthy animal runs for 45 seconds to return a single row.
That’s a terrible row to seconds ratio.
Rewrites for this will be similar to others, so hopefully you’re not sick of those just yet.
Whenever I’m rewriting small, compact, sorta stubby looking queries, I like to think of myself as Willy Wonka stretching out Mike Teavee.
Queries like that remind me a bit of the character himself. Rewriting them into more sensible forms with better attitudes does take a bit of stretching out.
SELECT
u.Id,
u.DisplayName,
s = SUM(p.Score)
FROM
(
SELECT
u.Id,
u.AccountId,
u.DisplayName
FROM dbo.Users AS u
WHERE u.Reputation >= 10
AND u.CreationDate >= '20131231 23:00'
) AS u
CROSS APPLY
(
SELECT
p.*
FROM dbo.Posts AS p
WHERE p.PostTypeId IN (1, 2)
AND p.OwnerUserId = u.Id
AND p.Score >= 1
UNION ALL
SELECT
p.*
FROM dbo.Posts AS p
WHERE p.PostTypeId > 2
AND p.OwnerUserId = u.AccountId
AND p.Score >= 1
) AS p
GROUP BY
u.Id,
u.DisplayName
ORDER BY
s DESC;
And of course, when you do better, SQL Server does better. And when SQL Server does better, everyone’s happy.
Why don’t you want to be happy?
At the beginning of the post, I also mentioned a different type of query, using OR to safeguard optional parameters from NULL values.
While I’m not going to delve into that here, because I’d like to do an entire post in this series on dynamic SQL, I’d like to add a single quick note: Don’t be afraid of OPTION(RECOMPILE).
It’s a huge problem solver for so many different types of queries having so many different kinds of problems:
If you’re ever unsure about query performance, and you’re not quite sure what’s wrong with it, you can do a whole lot worse than seeing if this at least gets you a different execution plan.
While it’s not perfect or practical as a long term solution for some situations, don’t dismiss it as a tool of exploration when you’re working on a problem query.
I’ve apparently tipped my hat a bit that dynamic SQL is a future subject for this series. After that, I’m not sure what else might come up. If there’s anything you’d like to see that you haven’t seen so far, leave a comment.
Thanks for reading!
If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering a 75% discount to my blog readers if you click from here. I’m also available for consulting if you just don’t have time for that, and need to solve database performance problems quickly. You can also get a quick, low cost health check with no phone time required.