Dear Sql Dba

Learn about new features to speed up SQL Server queries. Kendra talks about automatic index tuning and speculates about Adaptive Query Processing.

As a database administrator or developer, you'll get into trouble fast if you try to force all your code and processes into a database shaped hole. You have to be creative when you problem solve  -- and when you communicate! So how do you cultivate creativity?

The bigger your indexes are, the harder your index maintenance falls. Is it better to rebuild big indexes? Or should you reorganize? Learn the pros and cons of each command and other options.

Should you look at automatically created statistics on  your tables in SQL Server to help you design better indexes?

What tools in SQL Server will notify you about blocking and help track the queries behind your toughest blocking and deadlocking problems?

Should you always index your foreign keys? What if you index them, and then the index never gets used?

Learn what it's like to find and develop your voice as a technical speaker in this week's episode.

What are the best tools to collect and baseline wait statistics? Should you write your own?

A C# developer wants to be a DBA, but is having a hard time landing a job. Should they take a pay cut and go for a Junior level job? Or could there be another path?  

You'd love to have a job tuning SQL Servers, but you don't have an environment to practice in. Here's how to teach yourself performance tuning and prepare yourself to land and succeed in job interviews.

You need to change an INT column to a BIGINT in a large table. Learn why this schema change can make your transaction log explode, and how to avoid it.

Your boss wants you to automate patching for your SQL Servers. Is that a good idea? How far should you take it? Find out a DBAs perspective.  

Learn what can cause performance regressions after migrating to a new SQL Server version, and how to troubleshoot it.

Learn how to configure the Max Degree of Parallelism and Cost Threshold for Parallelism settings in SQL Server - and about how SQL Server 2014 SP2 and SQL Server 2016 change the way that SQL Server automatically configures some SQL Servers with lots of cores.

You're a Junior or mid-level Database Administrator with no obvious career path. How do you grow the right skills to level up your DBA career?

SQL Server’s “index usage stats” dynamic management view is incredibly useful-- but does it tell you what you THINK it tells you? Kendra explains the quirks of how sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats works, as well as why she thinks the information is so valuable.

You’re setting up SQL Server log shipping for disaster recovery. What else do you need to do to best prepare for a failure?

You believe that your expensive SAN is slowing down the SQL Server. How can you make your case without making enemies?

What do you do when your fellow DBA is a ticking time-bomb of bad decisions, waiting to explode your production environment?

The SQL Server is slow, what should you do? Kendra shares her strategy for performance troubleshooting.