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Pass Summit 2016 abstract reviews
Following on Steve’s blog post on summit abstracts, I decided to publish mine. My comments are not intended as an attack on the program committee, it’s an incredibly hard job that you couldn’t pay me...
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I’m a Pluralsight author!
My first course, Identifying & Fixing Performance Issues Caused by Parameter Sniffing, was published two weeks ago. It won’t be the last. Recording the course was a voyage of discovery. Until then,...
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What is a SARGable predicate?
‘SARGable’ is a weird term. It gets bandied around a lot when talking about indexes and whether queries can seek on indexes. The term’s an abbreviation, ‘SARG’ stands for Search ARGument, and it means...
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Books of 2016
I set myself a reading goal of 75 books for last year, and managed 73. I’m not overly happy about that, there were months where I barely managed to read anything The full list, with Amazon links is at...
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SQL Server 2016 features: Query Store
Given that SQL Server 2016 is coming ‘real soon now’, it’s probably well past time that I write up some thoughts on new features. The first one I want to look at is a feature that I’m so looking...
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SQL Server 2016 features: Live query statistics
Ever wanted to look at a query’s actual execution plan (execution plan with runtime information) without waiting for the query to finish? Now you can. Enable that and run a query, and you get an...
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SQL 2016 features: Stretch Database
Stretch database allows for a table to span an ‘earthed’ SQL Server instance and an Azure SQL Database. It allows for parts (or all) of a table, presumably older, less used parts, to be stored in Azure...
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Upcoming conferences
It’s shaping up to a busy year for conferences, well busy by my standards that is. While I’m unfortunately missing SQLBits, I’ll still be getting a chance to enjoy an English summer. InsideSQL The...
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SQL Server 2016 features: Temporal Tables
Another new feature in SQL 2016 is the Temporal Table (or System Versioning, as its referred to in the documentation). It allows a table to be versioned, in terms of data, and for queries to access...
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SQL Server 2016 features: R services
One of the more interesting features in SQL 2016 is the integration of the R language. For those who haven’t seen it before, R is a statistical and data analysis language. It’s been around for ages,...
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Pass Summit 2016 abstract reviews
Following on Steve’s blog post on summit abstracts, I decided to publish mine. My comments are not intended as an attack on the program committee, it’s an incredibly hard job that you couldn’t pay me...
View ArticleClik here to view.
I’m a Pluralsight author!
My first course, Identifying & Fixing Performance Issues Caused by Parameter Sniffing, was published two weeks ago. It won’t be the last. Recording the course was a voyage of discovery. Until then,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What is a SARGable predicate?
‘SARGable’ is a weird term. It gets bandied around a lot when talking about indexes and whether queries can seek on indexes. The term’s an abbreviation, ‘SARG’ stands for Search ARGument, and it means...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Books of 2016
I set myself a reading goal of 75 books for last year, and managed 73. I’m not overly happy about that, there were months where I barely managed to read anything The full list, with Amazon links is at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hunting for the True Location, with Machine Learning
Some context first. My company puts on a year end function every year. It’s at some resort or other, and the important thing for this post is that we’re not told the location in advance. We find out...
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Books of 2017
Right, beginning of a new year, so time to look at what I read in the last year and what of it I can recommend. Please ignore that it’s almost February. I’m going to pretend that the year starts with...
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Obsessing over query operator costs
A common problem when looking at execution plans is attributing too much meaning and value of the costs of operators. The percentages shown for operators in query plans are based on costs generated by...
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Homebuilt sequential columns
I gave my introductory session on transactions at all three of the South African SQL Saturdays in 2016, as well as at SQL Saturday Oregon in October 2017, and something that came up in most of them was...
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Revisiting catch-all queries
I originally wrote about catch-all queries early in 2009, just as something that I’d seen several times in client code. It turned into the 3rd most popular post ever on my blog. A lot’s changed since...
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When a forced plan isn’t forced
One of the uses for the Query Store, added in SQL 2016, is to force plans. Once forced, plans are supposed to remain unchanged, however there are cases where a forced plan will not be applied and a new...
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