How To Find Long Running Backups in SQL Server

I’ve written before about how much I love looking for outliers. One example of this can be found in the post I did on the sysjobhistory table. Recently I was asked to put together some code to find out which backups were “running long”. Of course my first question was trying to define what was … Read more

The 3 DBA Mistakes You Don’t Know You Are Making

You have no idea that what you are not doing is causing you pain. Then again, how could you know this? I mean, if you are not doing it, why would you ever think that your inaction could be the very thing that is causing you heartache every time your phone rings in the middle … Read more

Are You Using the Right SQL Server Performance Metrics?

No matter what our profession, we all have our favorite set of tools to help us get the job done. Database Administrators will have a set of scripts that we use in order to gain insight into the server instances under our care. I often see beginner DBAs look to the counters provided by Perfmon (AKA, the Resource and … Read more

6 Little Known Things That Can Cause Big Performance Issues

Ever have that sinking feeling?

As a system admin, DBA, or a developer it is our job to root out performance problems quickly. The trouble is that there are so many things that can cause performance issues it can be difficult to know every possible root cause. This is especially true when the root cause lies somewhere outside your area … Read more

Why the 127 Diagrams?

Yesterday I showed you some real world SQL joins and their associated diagrams. I also left as an exercise for the reader this question regarding a standard three table join: “explain why I could need 127 different diagrams” I had a few people guess the answer on Twitter and G+ as well as some emails. … Read more