SQL Server Consulting, Education, and Training
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 performance problems quickly.
If you missed out on my online class, I’m offering one more date for it in July.
You can catch all the goodness of Premium Performance Tuning on July 24th.
In this class, I’ll teach you about my strategy for tuning horrible queries, and show you practical examples for dealing with a variety of performance issues. It’s a full day of learning with no fluff.
I’ll be covering topics that you’ll face day to day, like dealing with parameter sniffing, functions, temporary objects, complex queries, and more. You’ll learn how to get to the bottom of query performance issues like a pro by getting the right information and learning how to interpret it.
Enrolling in my full day course also gets you access to my training videos, which is a $1000 value with over 24 hours of content.
On the day of the training, you’ll be able to watch the video stream on my site here.
To interact with me and other students, go to SQLslack.com to get an invite, then go to https://SQLcommunity.Slack.com, or download the Slack app to join. We’ll be in the #erikdarling-tuning channel. That’s the only way to ask questions right now. Unfortunately with video streaming, there’s no built-in chat. You have to bring your own.
If you wanna follow along, you’ll need to download the StackOverflow 2013 database, along with the latest SSMS, and Developer Edition of SQL Server: 2017 | 2019. While you’re being a good DBA, don’t forget to make sure you’re up to date on patching.
See you in class!
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 performance problems quickly.
If you missed out on my online class, I’m offering one more date for it in July.
You can catch all the goodness of Premium Performance Tuning on July 24th.
In this class, I’ll teach you about my strategy for tuning horrible queries, and show you practical examples for dealing with a variety of performance issues. It’s a full day of learning with no fluff.
I’ll be covering topics that you’ll face day to day, like dealing with parameter sniffing, functions, temporary objects, complex queries, and more. You’ll learn how to get to the bottom of query performance issues like a pro by getting the right information and learning how to interpret it.
Enrolling in my full day course also gets you access to my training videos, which is a $1000 value with over 24 hours of content.
On the day of the training, you’ll be able to watch the video stream on my site here.
To interact with me and other students, go to SQLslack.com to get an invite, then go to https://SQLcommunity.Slack.com, or download the Slack app to join. We’ll be in the #erikdarling-tuning channel. That’s the only way to ask questions right now. Unfortunately with video streaming, there’s no built-in chat. You have to bring your own.
If you wanna follow along, you’ll need to download the StackOverflow 2013 database, along with the latest SSMS, and Developer Edition of SQL Server: 2017 | 2019. While you’re being a good DBA, don’t forget to make sure you’re up to date on patching.
See you in class!
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 performance problems quickly.
You’re an ISV, and your customers are complaining about application performance. You have competent developers, but they’re overwhelmed by long lists of new features and spend a lot of time putting out fires. Underneath it all is a SQL Server that everyone is scared of.
They probably don’t have the luxury of sitting and learning performance tuning theory, and figuring out how to apply it to the database they’re working in. That kind of training can be time-consuming, and if the right topics don’t get covered they might not learn the right things.
You need someone to show up with the knowledge in hand to assess your databases, indexes, and queries, and guide the team to better practices and better performance.
Week in and week out, I work with nice people in tough situations, and my advice helps them learn exactly what they’re doing wrong with SQL Server so they can solve their problems. That model works for most people who only need a little boost.
For those with a little more trouble and a little less expertise, one of my most popular packages is a week of query tuning. I jump right in and work on your queries on a development server, and hand over all the changes I make along with documentation and training.
But there’s another class of client out there, too. You need more dedicated help, training, and face time.
It’s nice to have all your performance issues analyzed with detailed advice on how to solve them, or have your worst queries magically tuned for you, but your developers still don’t have the confidence or skill set to do all that on their own.
These are all great ways to learn, but may not cover exactly what you’re going through.
Your developers have specific questions about their code, indexes, and other local factors that lead to them seeking out education.
You just don’t get the kind of ultra-personalized answers and training that you need in those settings. And there are some obvious drawbacks:
If that’s all you need, check out mine. If you need something more, here’s what I have to offer.
What I do is bring the best all of those things together in your workplace.
We review your environments, work with your databases, and fix your your problems together.
Developers learn by watching and doing right along with me, and nothing is hidden away. If performance problems come up during the work day, we look at them together.
Think of it like having that performance lead you always needed around, without all the mess of having to hire one full time.
What you get from our time together is more than just consulting or a remote DBA. You get coaching that gets results, and your developers get the skills and confidence to keep SQL Server performing well on their own.
Want to find out more? Drop me a line here.
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 performance problems quickly.
There are some helper views and functions that I use in a few presentations, and I figured it was time to stick them on The GitHub so I don’t have to package them up and remember to keep changes in sync, etc.
It’s a nightmare. There are enough of those.
What am I dropping on you?
This view gives you a quick look at index sizes and row counts. It’s not exhaustive, and it’s not meant to be.
If you want exhaustive, use sp_BlitzIndex.
Since it’s a view, all you have to do is select from it.
SELECT * FROM dbo.WhatsUpIndexes AS wui;
I know, I’m terrible for writing SELECT *, but I really do want all the columns here.
If there were columns I didn’t want, I wouldn’t have put them in the view.
You know?
Because I’m kinda forgetful, I like having the view name in the results so I know what I’m looking at, and it’s obvious to people watching where results came from without looking at the T-SQL up on the screen. The rest of the info is pretty self-explanatory. It measures indexes by size and rows.
These two views are designed to complement each other a bit, because often what I’m showing with them is how big indexes are compared to what’s been read into memory. Sometimes it’s the whole index, sometimes it’s part of the index. But it’s nice to be able to see right next to each other.
As far as I know, there’s nothing out there that analyzes what’s in memory, and most of the time this isn’t something I’d want to run in production.
SELECT * FROM dbo.WhatsUpMemory AS wum;
There are two reasons for that:
I don’t think there’s another memory view that gives me what I want back, so I’m sort of stuck with this one here.
You can see how the two help each other, and you can also probably see why it’s easy to get the results confused. If it weren’t for the buffer cache pages column here, it might look just like index info. Heh.
This is an inline table valued function, and it takes one parameter for a SPID.
It can be NULL if you want, but usually I want to focus in on what one things is doing.
SELECT * FROM dbo.WhatsUpLocks(@@SPID) AS wul;
This doesn’t give you nearly as much other detail as sp_WhoIsActive, but it’s good for just looking at locks taken. Note that a lot of the time, you might need to use a transaction to preserve the locks so you can see the full extent of the damage. If you’re looking at another session while it takes locks, it’ll either have to run for a bit, or you’ll have to be really fast with F5.
I use the Votes_Beater table to have a copy of the Votes table with a bunch of indexes on it that I don’t need to go and create live. They’re always there and ready for abusive demos. I like the Votes table because it’s big and narrow, with sensible data types for things (read: no MAX types).
It makes things a lot simpler.
I make no guarantees about which versions these’ll run on, and quite frankly I’m not interested in them being backwards compatible. They run on the versions that I do my demos on (2017 and 2019).
If they happen to work on older versions, great. If not, I’m fine with you making local changes, but won’t accept pull requests for it, and I’ll close issues about it immediately. It’s not like you can have dynamic SQL in these things, anyway.
For any questions about what they return, make sure you read the docs for the views they touch. It’s not hard to look at the queries, I promise ?
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 performance problems quickly.
If you missed out on my online class, I’m offering two more dates for it in July.
You can catch all the goodness of Premium Performance Tuning on July 10th and 24th.
In this class, I’ll teach you about my strategy for tuning horrible queries, and show you practical examples for dealing with a variety of performance issues. It’s a full day of learning with no fluff.
I’ll be covering topics that you’ll face day to day, like dealing with parameter sniffing, functions, temporary objects, complex queries, and more. You’ll learn how to get to the bottom of query performance issues like a pro by getting the right information and learning how to interpret it.
Enrolling in my full day course also gets you access to my training videos, which is a $1000 value with over 24 hours of content.
On the day of the training, you’ll be able to watch the video stream on my site here.
To interact with me and other students, go to SQLslack.com to get an invite, then go to https://SQLcommunity.Slack.com, or download the Slack app to join. We’ll be in the #erikdarling-tuning channel. That’s the only way to ask questions right now. Unfortunately with video streaming, there’s no built-in chat. You have to bring your own.
If you wanna follow along, you’ll need to download the StackOverflow 2013 database, along with the latest SSMS, and Developer Edition of SQL Server: 2017 | 2019. While you’re being a good DBA, don’t forget to make sure you’re up to date on patching.
See you in class!
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 performance problems quickly.
If you missed out on my online class, I’m offering two more dates for it in July.
You can catch all the goodness of Premium Performance Tuning on July 10th and 24th.
In this class, I’ll teach you about my strategy for tuning horrible queries, and show you practical examples for dealing with a variety of performance issues. It’s a full day of learning with no fluff.
I’ll be covering topics that you’ll face day to day, like dealing with parameter sniffing, functions, temporary objects, complex queries, and more. You’ll learn how to get to the bottom of query performance issues like a pro by getting the right information and learning how to interpret it.
Enrolling in my full day course also gets you access to my training videos, which is a $1000 value with over 24 hours of content.
On the day of the training, you’ll be able to watch the video stream on my site here.
To interact with me and other students, go to SQLslack.com to get an invite, then go to https://SQLcommunity.Slack.com, or download the Slack app to join. We’ll be in the #erikdarling-tuning channel. That’s the only way to ask questions right now. Unfortunately with video streaming, there’s no built-in chat. You have to bring your own.
If you wanna follow along, you’ll need to download the StackOverflow 2013 database, along with the latest SSMS, and Developer Edition of SQL Server: 2017 | 2019. While you’re being a good DBA, don’t forget to make sure you’re up to date on patching.
See you in class!
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 performance problems quickly.
If you missed out on my online class, I’m offering two more dates for it in July.
You can catch all the goodness of Premium Performance Tuning on July 10th and 24th.
In this class, I’ll teach you about my strategy for tuning horrible queries, and show you practical examples for dealing with a variety of performance issues. It’s a full day of learning with no fluff.
I’ll be covering topics that you’ll face day to day, like dealing with parameter sniffing, functions, temporary objects, complex queries, and more. You’ll learn how to get to the bottom of query performance issues like a pro by getting the right information and learning how to interpret it.
Enrolling in my full day course also gets you access to my training videos, which is a $1000 value with over 24 hours of content.
On the day of the training, you’ll be able to watch the video stream on my site here.
To interact with me and other students, go to SQLslack.com to get an invite, then go to https://SQLcommunity.Slack.com, or download the Slack app to join. We’ll be in the #erikdarling-tuning channel. That’s the only way to ask questions right now. Unfortunately with video streaming, there’s no built-in chat. You have to bring your own.
If you wanna follow along, you’ll need to download the StackOverflow 2013 database, along with the latest SSMS, and Developer Edition of SQL Server: 2017 | 2019. While you’re being a good DBA, don’t forget to make sure you’re up to date on patching.
See you in class!
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 performance problems quickly.
This isn’t a technical post, but give it a read anyway.
With a lot of events going online, including yours truly (I’m teaching a live class today!), those events need to stay committed to making sure people who show up have a good experience. In my case, that means they’re entertained, and they learn something about performance tuning SQL Server.
Ambitious, I know.
But beyond that, I want people to be comfortable. After all, the things that you’re gonna be learning about SQL Server are uncomfortable enough.
You won’t believe the things it reports back to Microsoft about you. smh, as the kids say.
To start things off on the right foot, I’ve adopted a general anti-harassment policy.
Rather than go on and on about things here, click that link and give it a read. If you’ve got any feedback, drop me a line.
Thanks for reading!
With SQL Saturday Chicago being canceled this year, I still wanted the nice folks who signed up to spend a Friday with me learning about SQL Server Performance Tuning to do just that.
The event will be taking place Friday, June 26th from 10AM EST – You’re Done Asking Questions.
While you won’t get to see me eat lunch at the speed of light or wonder what kind of scotch I smell like, you will get to learn all the horrible things I know about SQL Server.
Because a lot of emails from Eventbrite seem to get sent to the Great Spam Heaven, I’m writing this post for more visibility. If you’ve already bought a ticket, please check your email. If you can’t find one, get in touch with me here. I’ve been sending them, I swear.
On the day of the training, you’ll be able to watch the video stream on my site here.
To interact with me and other students, go to SQLslack.com to get an invite, then go to https://SQLcommunity.Slack.com, or download the Slack app to join. We’ll be in the #erikdarling-tuning channel. That’s the only way to ask questions right now. Unfortunately with video streaming, there’s no built-in chat. You have to bring your own.
If you wanna follow along, you’ll need to download the StackOverflow 2013 database, along with the latest SSMS, and Developer Edition of SQL Server: 2017 | 2019. While you’re being a good DBA, don’t forget to make sure you’re up to date on patching.
Since the event is online, I’ve decided to open ticket sales back up. If you wanna join in on the fun, you have until next Thursday to sign up.
All attendees get free access to my video training, for life. That’s a $1000 value.
Thanks, and 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 performance problems quickly.