As you probably already know by now, the 2020 edition of the PASS Summit will be held as a virtual event. Drawbacks That has drawbacks, of course. I’ve been to many PASS Summits in the past, and it’s always a great experience to be among so many fellow data professionals. To be surrounded by thousands of people that I know to have the same passion for data as I do, to face the same struggles in their daily work that I do, and to share my eagerness to absorb more information. The interactions in the hallway, the casual conversations during…

Another month, another T-SQL Tuesday. Our host in October, the amazing Rob Volk (b|t), wants us to explain database concepts like he is five. I like that concept. A lot. In fact, I have in the past already written similar posts, such as my explanation of SQL injection in non-technical terms to a twelve-year old grandmother. But that’s an old post, so I cannot use it for this T-SQL Tuesday. So instead, I’ll try to explain the physical join operators SQL Server supports in execution plans using a real life analogy. I don’t think a five year old would understand…

Almost half a year has passed since I released the first set of videos of the SQLServerFast Execution Plan Video Training. During this time, I have been working hard to ensure that the next set of videos is even better! As I am now getting ready to finish the last work on that second set of videos, I had to reorganize how and where I had located the videos. This means that links you may have saved will probably not work anymore. New location All existing content is still available, just at a different location. The basic level of block…

It’s September 2020, and it’s time for T-SQL Tuesday. Our host, this time, is Elizabeth Noble (b|t). And her theme of choice is automation. Not automating the work of others, our day to day job, but automating our own work. To limit the risk of error, to reduce the stress, and simply to avoid boredom from doing the same thing over and over again. I don’t really automate many of my tasks. My work focuses more on writing and optimizing tuning, and less on database administration. That means I do less repetitive tasks than many DBAs do. That said, one…

Some execution plan properties get a lot of attention. Others tend to be mostly overlooked. But even those properties can, sometimes, relay interesting information. Estimated Operator Cost The Estimated Operator Cost property is one of those that does get a lot of attention. Perhaps even too much. When you look at an execution plan in SQL Server Management Studio, or in Azure Data Studio., it conveniently marks each operator with a line such as “Cost: 34%”. And some third party tools, such as SentryOne’s Plan Explorer, even go a step further and color code this cost in red, yellow, or…

The theme for the August 2020 edition of T-SQL Tuesday brought back memories. Back when my children were in elementary school, the school asked them to bring things to put in a time capsule. I was clueless what that would be, so my children patiently explained that it’s a container they’d fill with “things” and then bury somewhere, for future generations to dig up, open, and then marvel at how life was in our time. And now, Tamara Clark (b|t) has asked the SQL community to build our own time capsule. She asks us what we want future generations to…

You probably have heard this already: PASS has decided that PASS Summit will go virtual this year. Instead of assembling in Dallas, we’ll all stay home. Presenters will present from behind their computers, at home. Attendees will watch on their devices, from their homes. It will sort of be the same, but not the same at all! I know a lot of you are debating whether to attend or not. I understand that. The live, face to face experience is one of the cornerstones of PASS Summit, of any community event. A virtual event will never capture that the same…

Can we please all stop the nonsense? Now? While I admit that I haven’t seen the literal statement “seeks are better than scans” in a while, I do keep encountering that generic idea, just in other words. Just as recently as this week, on the very popular blog of my good friend Pinal Dave (who knows I’m writing this post), I read this: “The query was indeed running extremely slow […] even though the main operator on the table was index seek.” So? What gives you the impression that an Index Seek should give better performance? Is this an artefact…

My second favorite method of learning is to learn from my mistakes. Or as I often put it, learn from your mistakes so that the next time you can make a new one, which isn’t quite as boring as repeating the same mistake over and over again. But even better than learning from my mistakes is learning from yours. No, not you specifically. Everyone else. Because while learning from mistakes is useful, making mistakes isn’t fun at all. If someone else already made a mistake, the why should I have to repeat that? And apparently I am not alone in…