SQL Server Diaries

The more I learn about SQL Server the more I realise how little I know.  While delving in the output of some DMVs I noticed that the sys.dm_exec_requests can be used to find the percentage completed for a backup operation, as well as the estimated time of completion. [Read More]

I was recently reviewing some of the Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) available since SQL Server 2005 and came across the interesting and useful sys.dm_db_partition_stats DMV.  The documentation states that this DMV will return “page and row-count information for every partition in the current database”.  In the Space Used by Filegroup... [Read More]

Migrating a database can be a major headache, especially due to the downtime or outage incurred by all systems accessing the database.  This is exacerbated when the data files which have to be moved are considerably large.  Obtaining approval for a suitable and longish downtime might not always be possible... [Read More]

It is a well known fact that SQL Server is a “memory junkie” – with the default settings it will consume and reserve all the available memory until the service or the server is restarted.  This may cause a problem on servers which have other services or applications running (such... [Read More]

I was recently discussing with one of my peers the fact that following a periodical reindexing/index rebuild, the overall database performance was better when the old syntax was executed. To put you in the picture, until the SQL Server 2000 version, index fragmentation was handled using the DBCC DBREINDEX and... [Read More]