Version 1.0 is Now Available! I’ve been working off and on, as my real job permits, on this visualization tool for SQL Server data files. This is an educational or exploratory tool where you can more readily see how the individual data pages in MDF/NDF files are organized, where your tables and indexes live, what effect operations like index ...

This is part three of a blog series illustrating a method to render the file structure of a SQL Server database into a graphic visualization. Previous Installments: Part 1 Part 2 Those that have been reading this series might be be thinking, “Is he going to go there?” Well, the answer is “Yes.” This is the GUID clustered index post that had to ...

Part 2 of a blog series visually demonstrating the layout of objects on data pages in SQL Server Part 1 In Part 1 of this series, I introduced a little demo app that renders the layout of pages in SQL Server files by object. Today I’ll put that app through its paces to show, in vivid color (well, teal, anyway) the destructive power of the famous ...

Part 1 of a blog series visually demonstrating the layout of objects on data pages in SQL Server Some years ago a gentleman called Danny Gould created a free tool called Internals Viewer for SQL Server. I’m a visual sort of guy, and I always thought it would be fun and educational to make a simple visualizer, like the one he created, in order to ...

The following table summarizes the results from my last two blog entries, showing the CPU time used when performing 5 million clustered index seeks: In test 1, making the clustered index unique improved performance by around 40%. In test 2, making the same change reduced performance by around 70% (on 64-bit systems – more on that later).  ...

This blog post was inspired by a question from a future student. Someone who was already booked for my SQL Server Internals class in June asked for some information on a current problem he was having with transaction log writes causing excessive wait times during index rebuild operations when run in ONLINE mode. He wanted to know if switching to ...

If you look up Table Hints in Books Online, you’ll find the following statement: If a clustered index exists, INDEX(0) forces a clustered index scan and INDEX(1) forces a clustered index scan or seek. If no clustered index exists, INDEX(0) forces a table scan and INDEX(1) is interpreted as an error. The interesting thing there is ...

Yesterday was a rebroadcast of the index internals seminar I presented last February, and I had forgotten how long it was. I was in a chat room the whole time, and the questions just kept coming, fast and (not so) furious! Thanks to all the participants for making it a really exciting 5 hours for me. I really appreciated all your enthusiasm. My ...

I thought I had said almost all that could be said about nonclustered index keys in a post made almost exactly two years ago, on March 16, 2008.  But there's more. To get all the benefit from today's post, you'll really have to read that one, but I'll synthesize the crucial details here. Every index needs to be unique, in some way or ...

I am really jazzed! The seminar was over 3.5 hours in length, and we had 3 15-20 minute breaks, during which questions just kept coming in the chat room. I barely got out to refill my coffee! But there were some great questions and a really enthusiastic audience, so I want to thank everyone who participated. I stuck around afterwards for more ...