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database management

5 Things You Didn’t Know About SQL Agent
November 27, 2013
Thomas LaRock
Microsoft SQL Server comes with a boatload of additional components. One component is the SQL Agent. The purpose of the SQL Agent is to serve as a job scheduler. Many…
What Happens if I Shrink a Database in Windows Azure?
November 20, 2013
Thomas LaRock
At some point in your career as a data professional, you are going to fill up an entire drive with data. It is not a question of “if,” but a…
Improve SQL Server Performance by Looking at Plan Cache (Part 3)
October 3, 2013
Thomas LaRock
You can use the information in the SQL Server plan cache to research performance issues and investigate opportunities for performance improvement. In this three-part article series, we’ve examined several important…
Improve SQL Server Performance by Looking at Plan Cache (Part 2)
October 3, 2013
Thomas LaRock
The SQL Server plan cache can be a good tool to use in identifying current performance issues and in looking for new ways to improve performance. In this second part…
Improve SQL Server Performance by Looking at Plan Cache (Part 1)
October 3, 2013
Thomas LaRock
The SQL Server plan cache stores details on statements that are executed over time. Each time a statement executes, SQL Server will look inside the plan cache first to see…
SQL Server Consolidation, Part 3
December 20, 2012
Thomas LaRock
I wrote a couple of posts previously on SQL Server consolidation. The first post tried to give insight on some of the problems and associated motivating factors that most companies have…
SQL Server Consolidation, Part 2
December 20, 2012
Thomas LaRock
Consider for a moment that you have a deck attached to your house. It is one story above ground level and is growing weaker with each passing year. The former…
SQL Server Consolidation, Part 1
December 20, 2012
Thomas LaRock
I am seeing more than a handful of articles these days regarding SQL Server virtualization and/or consolidation. Lots of companies are coming forward to provide you tools that will take…
Performance Counters for Database Mirroring
December 19, 2012
Thomas LaRock
We have customers using database mirroring, so I wanted to take some time to write a quick post regarding database mirroring and performance monitoring. Microsoft has published an article titled…
Performance Tuning and Time Invested
December 17, 2012
Thomas LaRock
I never cared for the phrase “wasted time” when it comes to something like performance tuning. Sure, we all feel that way, especially when we spend hours on something only…