Blogs

I’ve got a backlog of learnings from stress-testing to blog, so if you like this post there’s more to come. I’m a huge fan of SQL Server’s Query Store feature. Query Store collects query execution plans and aggregate query performance metrics, including wait stats. Having Query Store enabled makes troubleshooting performance issues such as bad parameter sniffing, much, much easier. Because Query Store is integrated into SQL Server itself, it also can catch query plans in a lightweight way that an external monitoring system will often miss.

Top 5 Toxic Flavors of Tech Execs

By Kendra Little in Tech

April 11, 2024

I’ve been an employee at small, medium, and large companies, and I’ve also been a short-term consultant working with a new company in any given week. I’ve worked with hundreds of tech companies remotely and have visited companies onsite on multiple continents.

Air-dropping into company cultures to work through problems with teams and present recommendations to their leadership reveals common anti-patterns in leadership – plus some patterns that make teams raving fans of their management.

Here’s the top 5 Toxic Flavors of Tech Execs I’ve encountered over 20 years, plus the Top 5 Team Building Tech Execs I’ve found, too.

Something Weird Happened: I Love My Job Again

By Kendra Little in SQL Server

March 26, 2024

Back in my 20’s, I was lucky enough to go to graduate school. I had a work-study job in the Dean’s office where I got to develop and administer their Access databases, which helped me get by. One day, the Dean said to me: “Kendra, when you talk about your work on our databases, you light up. When you talk about your coursework, that doesn’t happen. Have you thought about that?

You Won't Find Long Compilers Who Time Out in Query Store

By Kendra Little in SQL Server

March 5, 2024

Last November, a puzzle was really bothering me. Some queries from an application were timing out frequently after running for 30 seconds, but they were halfway invisible in the SQL Server.

How to Start an XEvents Trace on a Read Scale-Out Azure SQL Managed Instance

By Kendra Little in SQL Server, Azure SQL Managed Instance

February 29, 2024

It took me more than half hour to figure out how to start an XEvents trace on a read-scale out instance of Azure SQL Managed Instance. It’s hard to monitor read scale-out instances, so tracing is desirable! I started with a simple trace of sql_statement_completed. Hopefully this saves other folks some time.

Should You Use SQL Server Readable Secondaries if Queries Can Fail Repeatedly at Any Time?

By Kendra Little in SQL Server

February 21, 2024

If you use readable secondaries in Availability Groups or Read-Scale out instances in Azure SQL Managed Instance, you may have queries fail repeatedly if there is a glitch and statistics are not successfully “refreshed” on the secondary replica. Those queries may keep failing until you manually intervene.

It’s unclear if Microsoft will ever fix this. There is a well established support deflection article which documents the issue and provides ‘workarounds’.

Ugly Bug: SQL Server Online Index Rebuild sometimes happens offline without warning

By Kendra Little in SQL Server

February 7, 2024

I found a nasty bug in SQL Server and Azure SQL Managed Instance recently: sometimes an “online” index rebuild of a disk-based rowstore clustered index (basically a normal, everyday table) isn’t actually “online”. In fact, it’s very OFFLINE, and it blocks both read and write queries against the table for long periods.

If you manage to make it through a rebuild successfully, the problem goes away for future rebuilds of that clustered index – likely leaving you bruised and bewildered.

Is the Azure SQL Managed Instance Business Critical Service Tier Worth the Cost?

By Kendra Little in SQL Server

January 29, 2024

The Business Critical service tier in Azure SQL Managed Instance is a lot more expensive than General Purpose. For the extra money, you get a different architecture.

Is it worth the extra cost? Spoiler: your mileage will vary, but probably not. Let’s talk about why.

Azure SQL Managed Instance General Purpose Architecture and Performance/Cost Tradeoffs

By Kendra Little in SQL Server

January 22, 2024

Whether or not you use Azure SQL Managed Instance, you will likely be asked for an opinion on it eventually if you’re a SQL Server person.

While the architecture is documented, it can be a bit of a long read and some of the gotchas are spread out over different pages – so I’m drawing up the architecture of each service tier along with notable implications for the design on performance and cost. Here’s the scoop on General Purpose.

Automatic Plan Correction Could be a Great Auto Tuning Feature for SQL Server. Here's why it Isn't.

By Kendra Little in SQL Server

January 17, 2024

I’ve written a bit about SQL Server’s Automatic Plan Correction feature before– I have an hour long free course with demos on Automatic Plan Correction here on the site.

Today I’m updating that course with a note: after using Automatic Plan Correction in anger for a good amount of time, I do not recommend enabling the feature. I’ve had it cause too many performance problems, and there are not a ton of options for an administrator when it’s causing those problems.

Meanwhile, becoming reliant on the feature for the places where it does help makes it difficult to disable the feature. You end up stuck with a very weird set of problems that are oddly similar to the problems the feature was designed to solve.

Further investment in the feature could solve these problems and make this a great tool for customers. Here’s a run down of what Automatic Plan Correction needs from a user who has suffered from it.

Query Store Size Based Cleanup Causes Performance Problems - How to Avoid It

Top 5 Toxic Flavors of Tech Execs

Something Weird Happened: I Love My Job Again

You Won't Find Long Compilers Who Time Out in Query Store

How to Start an XEvents Trace on a Read Scale-Out Azure SQL Managed Instance

Should You Use SQL Server Readable Secondaries if Queries Can Fail Repeatedly at Any Time?

Ugly Bug: SQL Server Online Index Rebuild sometimes happens offline without warning

Is the Azure SQL Managed Instance Business Critical Service Tier Worth the Cost?

Azure SQL Managed Instance General Purpose Architecture and Performance/Cost Tradeoffs

Automatic Plan Correction Could be a Great Auto Tuning Feature for SQL Server. Here's why it Isn't.

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