If you attended my session this morning, thank you!  It's always flattering when people are willing to wake up before 8:00 a.m. just so that they can hear a talk about SQL Server.  I had a great time doing the talk, and I think it went well.  My sincerest apologies to the person I accidentally hit in the head with the t-shirt; I will work on my throwing arm and hopefully do a better job with the swag tossing next time!

For those who were not there, the presentation was recorded, and I believe it will be posted online at some point, so keep your eyes open for that.

Next Thursday, May 8, the New England SQL Server Users Group will have a special meeting, featuring Craig Freedman from the SQL Server development team.  Craig is The Man when it comes to query optimizer internals, and wrote an incredibly detailed chapter on the topic for "Inside SQL Server 2005: Query Tuning and Optimization".

At the meeting next week, Craig will discuss some of what he talked about in the chapter, including the basics of how the query processor works and what iterators are.  He'll cover the various operators you'll commonly see in query plans, and describe how they actually work internally. 

This should be a great meeting, and we expect it to be very well attended.  In order to help us figure out food and drink, in addition to securing enough chairs for the meeting room, we need you to RSVP if you're planning to attend.  In order to RSVP, sign up for our mailing list.  I will send out an e-mail next Tuesday, and you can RSVP by replying to it.  Only attendees who RSVP will be eligible for our prize draw at the end of the night, so make sure to sign up for our list by Monday in order to guarantee that you don't get left out.

We would like to thank Red Gate Software, who made a very generous donation to the group that allowed us to have this special meeting.  Red Gate makes some of my favorite SQL Server tools and provides a huge amount of community support in the SQL Server and .NET space, and we hope that you will give their products a try.

How creative are you with manipulating your queries to produce more efficient plans? Try the following puzzle and e-mail your solution to me at [<my last name> @ pythian.com]. Make sure to include an explanation of why it works, as well as your mailing address. The best two solutions/explanations win a free copy of Expert SQL Server 2005 Development, a wonderful feeling of accomplishment, plus eternal fame and glory when I reveal your solutions here on the blog.

Run the following T-SQL to create two tables in TempDB:

USE TempDB
GO

CREATE TABLE b1 (blat1 CHAR(5) NOT NULL)
CREATE TABLE b2 (blat2 VARCHAR(200) NOT NULL)
GO

INSERT b1
SELECT LEFT(AddressLine1, 5) AS blat1
FROM AdventureWorks.Person.Address

INSERT b2
SELECT AddressLine1 AS blat2
FROM AdventureWorks.Person.Address
GO

SELECT *
FROM b1
JOIN b2 ON
    b2.blat2 LIKE b1.blat1 + '%'

This query takes around three minutes to run on my notebook, and does over 1.8 million logical reads. Can you figure out a way to re-write it so that it performs better? No modification of the base tables or addition of any other objects is allowed (sorry, no indexed views!) -- the challenge is to tune this by doing nothing more than re-writing the query.

Good luck! I'll leave the contest open for submissions until May 1.

I generally shy away from writing personal blog posts about my life, but when it comes to major career changes it's kind of fun to share the news.

After almost three years as an independent consultant, I have stepped out of that business and into a full-time role with a company called The Pythian Group, a provider of remote DBA services.  Never heard of The Pythian Group?  That's because although the company is big in the Oracle and MySQL worlds, it has just begun to make its move into the SQL Server arena.  My job title is Global Practice Lead for the SQL Server practice, and I am tasked with, among other things, increasing the company's presence and business on this side of the fence.  Fun stuff!

The Pythian Group has a very interesting business model that is at once both similar to what I knew as a consultant and totally foreign to the way I'm used to doing things. For example, as a consultant I generally billed my time in 15-minute increments; at The Pythian Group, time is billed in 1-minute increments -- great for the customer, not so great for the DBA. Luckily, they've built some tools to help ease the pain and after a week of totally hating the system I'm already starting to get used to it.  (Sort of). 

The company is heavily focused on automated monitoring and 24x7 support delivered via a network of offices around the globe -- things that as an independent consultant I never would have been able to deliver.  I'm really excited to watch things scale up from what is currently a relatively small SQL Server group to what I expect will eventually become a fairly large one.  I'm especially interested in seeing how some of the SQL Server 2008 tools -- such as Policy-Based Management -- will affect the way we work at Pythian.  As a consultant I was not especially enthusiastic about that feature.  As a remote DBA, it suddenly makes perfect sense.

Anyway, thanks if you've read this far, and I'll end with a bit of a plug: if this stuff sounds at all interesting to you as a DBA, drop me a line.  We're hiring.  And don't let the 1-minute increment thing scare you (too much).

Relative comparison is a simple matter of human nature. From early childhood we compare and contrast what we see in the world around us, building a means by which to rate what we experience. And as it turns out, this desire to discover top and bottom, rightmost and leftmost, or best and worst happens to extend quite naturally into business scenarios. Which product is the top seller? How about the one that's simply not moving off the shelves? Which of our customers has placed the most expensive order? What are the most recent orders placed at each of our outlets?

In the world of common business questions, the edge cases are generally of most interest. What's in the middle is unimportant; it's often too difficult for the mind to compare and comprehend when there are hundreds, thousands, or even millions of items, transactions, or facts that are all within a similar range. Instead, we focus on those that stick out in some extraordinary way.

Those of us who work with SQL products on a regular basis are faced with solving this same problem time and again as we work through various business requirements. Over time, I have noticed four basic query patterns that can be used to solve the problem; each are logically equivalent (within certain restrictions -- more on that later), but can have surprisingly different performance characteristics depending on the data being queried. In this first post, I will outline the available patterns/methods. In the following posts, I will show the results of testing each pattern against a variety of scenarios in an attempt to discover where and when each should be used.

The four basic patterns are outlined below. Each of the methods is illustrated using a query to show all customers' names, plus their most recent order date, and the amount of that order. I've included notes that indicate where logic differences can arise among the various methods.

Method 1: Join to full group and use correlated subquery with a MIN/MAX aggregate to filter

In this method we use an inner join to get all required columns, then filter the resultant set using a correlated subquery in the WHERE clause.

SELECT
    c.FirstName,
    c.LastName,
    o.OrderDate,
    o.OrderAmount
FROM Customers c
JOIN Orders o ON o.CustomerId = c.CustomerId
WHERE
    o.OrderDate  =
    (
        SELECT MAX(o1.OrderDate)
        FROM Orders o1
        WHERE
            o1.CustomerId = o.CustomerId
    )

Logic notes: With this method ties are automatically included in the output, unless a tiebreaker is specified (which can be tricky given that you only have one column to work with). This method does not allow you to pull back an arbitrary number of rows, such as top 10 per customer; you are limited to the edge and any ties that might exist.

Method 1a: Join to full group and use correlated subquery with TOP(n) and ORDER BY to filter

This method is almost identical to Method 1 (which is why it is classified here as 1a), but the TOP and ORDER BY allow for a bit more flexibility than the aggregates.

SELECT
    c.FirstName,
    c.LastName,
    o.OrderDate,
    o.OrderAmount
FROM Customers c
JOIN Orders o ON o.CustomerId = c.CustomerId
WHERE
    o.OrderDate  =
    (
        SELECT TOP(1)
            o1.OrderDate
        FROM Orders o1
        WHERE
            o1.CustomerId = o.CustomerId
        ORDER BY
            o1.OrderDate DESC
    )

Logic notes: With this method you can more easily integrate a tiebreaker than with Method 1; the comparison column can be anything, including a primary key, and you can still order on whatever column makes most sense. In addition, you can take more rows than with Method 1 by using IN instead of = in the WHERE clause, and increasing the argument value to TOP.

Method 2: CROSS APPLY to ordered TOP(n)

In this method, SQL Server 2005's CROSS APPLY operator is used. This operator allows us to essentially create a table-valued correlated subquery -- something that impossible in previous versions of SQL Server. By using TOP in conjunction with ORDER BY we can get as many rows per group as needed.

SELECT
    c.FirstName,
    c.LastName,
    x.OrderDate,
    x.OrderAmount
FROM Customers c
CROSS APPLY
(
    SELECT TOP(1)
        o.OrderDate,
        o.OrderAmount
    FROM Orders o
    WHERE
        o.CustomerId = c.CustomerId
    ORDER BY
        o.OrderDate DESC
) x

Logic notes: This method is almost identical, from a logic point of view, with Method 1a modified to use IN on a primary key column. With both methods WITH TIES can be added to the TOP in order to get ties.

Method 3: Join to derived table that uses a partitioned, ordered windowing function, and filter in the outer query based on the row number

In this method a derived table or CTE is used, in conjunction with a windowing function partitioned based on the required grain of the final query. So for the "most recent order per customer" query, the row number is partitioned based on the customer. This gives us a count starting at 1 for each customer, which can be filtered in the outer query.

SELECT
    c.FirstName,
    c.LastName,
    x.OrderDate,
    x.OrderAmount
FROM Customers c
INNER JOIN
(
    SELECT
        o.OrderDate,
        o.OrderAmount,
        o.CustomerId,
        ROW_NUMBER() OVER
        (
            PARTITION BY o.CustomerId
            ORDER BY o.OrderDate DESC
        ) AS r
    FROM Orders o
) x ON
    x.CustomerId = c.CustomerId
    AND x.r = 1

Logic notes: If ties are important, use DENSE_RANK instead of ROW_NUMBER. ROW_NUMBER is good for arbitrary TOP(n), similar to Method 2. Unlike the previously described methods, in conjunction with DENSE_RANK this method can return an arbitrary TOP(n) rows, all of which can include ties. So if you would like to see the three most recent order dates and each happens to have multiple orders, this method will be able to return them all by simply filtering on x.r = 3. This would not be directly possible with any of the other methods described here.

Method 4: "Carry-along sort"

This is the only "tricky" method, and not one that I recommend using, except as a last resort. I'm including it here only for completeness and comparison because it happens to be a very high performance method in some cases. This method involves converting each of the required inner columns into a string, concatenating them, then applying an aggregate to the string as a whole. By putting the "sort" column first, the other data is "carried along" -- thus the name for the method. The concatenated data is then "unpacked" in the outer query. This can be surprisingly efficient from an I/O standpoint, but the resultant code is a maintenance nightmare and it is quite easy to introduce errors. In addition, this method can only return the top 1 per group -- no ties or multiple return items are supported.

SELECT
    c.FirstName,
    c.LastName,
    CONVERT(DATETIME, SUBSTRING(x.OrderInfo, 1, 8)) AS OrderDate,
    CONVERT(MONEY, SUBSTRING(x.OrderInfo, 9, 15)) AS OrderAmount
FROM Customers c
INNER JOIN
(
    SELECT
        o.CustomerId,
        MAX
        (
            CONVERT(CHAR(8), OrderDate, 112) +
            CONVERT(CHAR(15), SubTotal)
        ) OrderInfo
    FROM Orders o
    GROUP BY
        o.CustomerId
) x ON
    x.CustomerId = c.CustomerId

This post is just the beginning; watch this space in the coming days for a series of performance tests and analysis of these methods, and some results that I personally found to be quite surprising.
 

Just a heads up for those in the Boston area: The New England SQL Server Users Group is doing a special event next Wednesday night (January 23), featuring Itzik Ben-Gan, talking about Grouping Sets in SQL Server 2008:

SQL Server 2008 introduces enhanced support for aggregating data addressing the needs to analyze aggregated data dynamically. The enhancements include the new GROUPING SETS clause, the standard CUBE and ROLLUP clauses (not to confuse those with the existing non-standard CUBE and ROLLUP options), the GROUPING_ID function, and other T-SQL enhancements. This session will cover those enhancements in detail, and will describe and demonstrate their practical uses.

This should be a great event, so mark your calendars and check the NESQL Web site for more information. Please note that RSVP is strongly encouraged for this event -- only people who RSVP will be eligible for giveaways that night, and we have a great selection. To get on the list to RSVP, please visit the Web site and sign up for our mailing list.  I will send a mailing -- which will include RSVP instructions -- next Monday.

"Lonely but free I'll be found
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds"

 - Supremes, "Tumbling Tumble Weeds"

Welcome to the first installment of what I hope will be a regular feature on this blog, Anti-Patterns and Malpractices. As a consultant, I get the honor of seeing a lot of different systems, with a lot of different code. Some of it is good, and some of it -- well -- I'll be featuring that which is not so good here. No names will be named, and code will be changed to protect the not-so-innocent; my goal is not to call out or embarrass anyone, but rather to expose those misguided patterns and practices which inevitably lead to problems (and a subsequent call to a consultant; perhaps if I post enough of these I'll have fewer less-than-appealing encounters in my work!)

The topic du jour is the Tumbling Data Anti-Pattern, a name coined by my friend Scott Diehl. Much like the tumbleweed lazily blowing around in the dust, data which exhibits this pattern is slowly and painstakingly moved from place to place, gaining little value along the way.

So what exactly typifies this particular anti-pattern? Consider the following block of T-SQL, designed to count all married employees in the AdventureWorks HumanResources.Employee table and bucket them into age ranges of 20-35 and 36-50, grouped by gender. Employees older than 50 should be disregarded:

--Find all married employees
SELECT *
INTO #MarriedEmployees
FROM HumanResources.Employee
WHERE 
    MaritalStatus = 'M'

/*
select * from #marriedemployees where employeeid = 20
*/

--Find employees between 20 and 35
SELECT 
    EmployeeId
INTO #MarriedEmployees_20_35
FROM #MarriedEmployees
WHERE
    DATEDIFF(year, birthdate, getdate()) BETWEEN 20 AND 35

    
--Find employees between 36 and 50
SELECT 
    EmployeeId
INTO #MarriedEmployees_36_50
FROM #MarriedEmployees
WHERE
    DATEDIFF(year, birthdate, getdate()) BETWEEN 36 AND 50


--Remove the employees older than 50
DELETE
FROM #MarriedEmployees
WHERE
    EmployeeId NOT IN
    (
        SELECT EmployeeId
        FROM #MarriedEmployees_20_35
    )
    AND 
    EmployeeId NOT IN
    (
        SELECT EmployeeId
        FROM #MarriedEmployees_36_50
    )

--Count the remaining employees
SELECT 
    e.Gender,
    COUNT(*) AS theCount
INTO #Employee_Gender_Count_20_35
FROM #MarriedEmployees e
JOIN #MarriedEmployees_20_35 m ON e.EmployeeId = m.EmployeeId
GROUP BY
    e.Gender

--select * from #Employee_Gender_Count_20_35

SELECT 
    e.Gender,
    COUNT(*) AS theCount
INTO #Employee_Gender_Count_36_50
FROM #MarriedEmployees e
JOIN #MarriedEmployees_36_50 m ON e.EmployeeId = m.EmployeeId
GROUP BY
    e.Gender

--Get the final answer
SELECT 
    a.Gender,
    a.theCount AS [20 to 35],
    b.theCount AS [36 to 50]
FROM #Employee_Gender_Count_20_35 a
JOIN #Employee_Gender_Count_36_50 b ON b.Gender = a.Gender

This kind of code tells us several things about the person who wrote it. Rather than thinking upfront and designing a complete solution or at least a game plan before typing, this person appears to have thought through the problem at hand in a step-by-step manner, coding along the way. A bit of debugging was done along the way, but the real goal was to spit out an answer as quickly as possible (or so it seemed at the time). No attempt was made to go back and fix the extraneous code or do any cleanup; why bother, when we already have an answer?

It's important to mention that this is a simple example. I generally see this anti-pattern exploited when developers are tasked with producing large, complex reports against data sources that aren't quite as well-designed as they could be. In an attempt to preserve sanity, the developer codes each tiny data transformation in a separate statement, slowly morphing the data into the final form he wishes to output. The resultant scripts are often thousands of lines long and take hours to run, during which time the server crawls (and throughout the office you can hear people muttering "the server sure is slow today").

The solution to this problem is simple, of course, and the best software engineers do it automatically: Before writing a line of code sit back for just a moment and consider your end goal. Do you need to work in steps, or will a single query suffice? Can various join conditions and predicates be merged? Perhaps a Google search is a good idea; what is the best way to produce a histogram without a temp table?

The hurried atmosphere of many companies leads to a "get it done right now--even if it's far from perfect" attitude that ends up wasting a lot more time than it saves. The above example code block took me around 10 minutes to put together. A single-query version took me under two minutes to code. It is less than a third of the length, runs approximately 500 times faster, and uses 0.4% of the resources. All because I spent a couple of moments reflecting on where I was going before I took the first step.

If you find yourself exploiting this anti-pattern, step back and question whether this code will have a life beyond the current query window. If it will ever be checked into source control, it's probably a good idea to go back and do some cleanup.

If you find yourself tasked with maintaining code that looks like what I've posted, my suggestion is to simply re-write it from scratch. I was recently faced with a script containing over 2000 lines of this kind of thing, and I spent almost two days slowly working my way through the mess trying to make sense of it. On the evening of the second day, after talking with some of the shareholders, I realized that it was actually a simple problem to solve. One hour later and I had a new, totally functional solution -- a couple of hundred lines long, and several orders of magnitude faster. Sometimes it's best not to wade through a muddy puddle, when you can simply hop right over.

I found Linchi's recent post on use of cursors in the TPC-E test to be quite interesting. The question is, why are cursors used in the test when the commonly accepted notion within the SQL Server community is that cursors are a bad thing?

I've posted in the past about situations where cursors were actually faster than set-based queries. But in this case I just don't see it; cursoring over an input set to do an update? There's no way that's going to be faster.

Greg Linwood commented in Linchi's post that "indexed cursors run just fine for most purposes". And although I have loads of respect for Greg and his opinions, I just can't agree in this case.  I did a few tests on my end just to make sure, and indexed or not, even for the simplest of of queries, cursors perform at least a few times more slowly than their set-based equivalents.  Greg mentioned in this comment that the SQL Server engine executes even set-based queries "internally using cursor style processing", but a loop in the query processor's code is clearly not the same as a T-SQL cursor.

The query processor is optimized internally to process data without having to pass it around to different spots in memory or switch context, whereas with a cursor the data is transferred into local variables and your code has to constantly ask the query processor to go back and get some more. This is extremely expensive, which is why even in my experiments with situations where you can see superior performance with cursors, I found that a SQLCLR cursor--which doesn't have to do nearly as much work as a T-SQL cursor--is vastly superior.

I'll close with a simple example.  The following two batches each run in AdventureWorks, and indexes are irrelevant in both cases.  See for yourself which is faster.

--Set-based
SELECT SUM(Quantity)
FROM Production.TransactionHistory
GO


--Cursor-based
DECLARE @q INT
INT @t INT
SET @t = 0

DECLARE c CURSOR
LOCAL FAST_FORWARD
FOR
SELECT Quantity
FROM Production.Transactionhistory

OPEN c

FETCH NEXT FROM c INTO @q

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
    SET @t = @t + @q

    FETCH NEXT FROM c INTO @q
END

CLOSE c
DEALLOCATE c

SELECT @t
GO