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Thinking Big (Adventure)

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If the title of this post doesn't have you scratching your head, you may have been paying very rapt attention last time you saw me speak. I love the portability of AdventureWorks and the fact that anyone can download it. Since it was released I've used it almost exclusively for demos in talks I've written....

A Computer Scientist Meets T-SQL

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There I was. A freshly printed bachelor's degree in Computer Science tucked under my arm, I walked into my First Real Job. I'd never touched the technologies I was going to work with--ASP 3.0 and SQL Server--but my employer knew that, and I figured I'd be able to pick things up relatively quickly. After...

T-SQL Tuesday #21 – A Day Late and Totally Full of It

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“This ugly hack is only temporary,” you think. Six months later, a coworker curses your name, sacrificing a chicken to any deity that will help expedite your getting struck down by lightning, a school bus, or both. Crap code. We’ve all seen it. We’ve all created it. We’re all guilty. Yes, even you. Sometimes our...

A Year of Tuesdays: T-SQL Tuesday Meta-Roundup

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Just over a year ago I kicked off T-SQL Tuesday, "a recurring, revolving blog party." The idea was simple: Each month a blog will host the party, and about a week before the second Tuesday of the month a theme will be posted. Any blogger that wishes to participate is invited to write a post...

Revisiting ISNULL, COALESCE, and the Perils of Micro-Optimization

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Almost six years ago--in November of 2004--I posted what would turn out to be one of my most popular blog posts in terms of number of reads, "Performance: ISNULL vs. COALESCE." (If you're curious, the post is dated July 2006 because I was too lazyit was difficult to transition the publication dates over with...

Smashing a DMV Myth: session_id > 50 == User Process

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Ever since I started working with SQL Server, I've been seeing advice to filter system views based on session identifiers, in order to return only user processes. The general advice is to look for session IDs (or SPIDs) greater than 50. And this seems relatively safe if you look at the system views on...

T-SQL Tuesday #007 and T-SQL Tuesday Has a Logo

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This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Jorge Segarra, the “SQL Chicken.” The topic is rather open ended: What is your favorite new(ish) SQL Server feature? Love the DACPAC? Can’t wait for PDW? Post about it and tell us why! In other T-SQL Tuesday news, we now have a logo. Those of you who are...

SQL University: Parallelism Week – Part 3, Settings and Options

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Congratulations! You've made it back for the the third and final installment of Parallelism Week here at SQL University. So far we've covered the fundamentals of multitasking vs. parallel processing and delved into how parallel query plans actually work. Today we'll take a look at the settings and options that influence intra-query parallelism and...

SQL University: Parallelism Week – Part 2, Query Processing

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Welcome back for the second part of Parallelism Week here at SQL University. Get your pencils ready, and make sure to raise your hand if you have a question. Last time we covered the necessary background material to help you understand how the SQL Server Operating System schedules its many active threads, and the differences...

SQL University: Parallelism Week – Introduction

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Welcome to Parallelism Week at SQL University. My name is Adam Machanic, and I'm your professor. Imagine having 8 brains, or 16, or 32. Imagine being able to break up complex thoughts and distribute them across your many brains, so that you could solve problems faster. Now quit imagining that, because you're human and you're...

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