As you will see in this chapter, companies use SQL Server for many types of applications and on most tiers now. Gone are the days when you would second guess yourself choosing to use SQL Server over a ...

Automatically identifying queries that are now running more slowly (i.e. regressed), and changing these to use a previously faster query plan, could prove to be a very useful feature. The chapter ...

Let's break down when it's ideal to use the NOLOCK hint and when you should never use it. As a consultant, I work on wide swaths of database systems, which means I get to see many, many SQL statements ...

As I discussed in an earlier column, SQL Server keeps a plan cached for each query it sees (assuming the query requires planning in the first place, of course). That's great for speeding up processing ...

Often, designing databases and speeding up SQL Server queries are treated as a kind of abstract problem: A just "Find this problem, apply this solution" approach to problem solving. In practice, ...

Microsoft has just added support for query hints to Azure SQL Database, giving database administrators a powerful tool to manage the performance of ISV application code. Here's how it works. Database ...

Poke around the infrastructure of any startup website or mobile app these days, and you’re bound to find something other than a relational database doing much of the heavy lifting. Take, for example, ...

This book aims to use Query Store to improve your SQL Server queries, how does it fare? Query Store is a tool that collects performance related information, allowing you to identify the cause of ...