Many years ago, I attended a conference where a very highly respected Oracle performance expert advocated the use of logical IO count as a performance metric. The argument was that a logical IO is a fairly substantial operation relative to others. I suppose that detailed logical IO was already collected supported this. So why would logical IO be ...

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 ...

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 ...

A couple of days ago, Aaron Bertrand posted about a method for calculating medians in SQL Server 2005 using the ROW_NUMBER function in conjunction with the COUNT aggregate. This method (credited to Itzik Ben-Gan) is interesting, but I discovered an even better way to attack the problem in Joe Celko's Analytics and OLAP in SQL.Rather than using a ...

On October 20, 2004 -- two years ago -- I announced that I was considering writing my own query load testing tool.Clearly, my follow through on this promise has been incredibly delayed.  But all is not lost, and I'm happy to report that I am true to my word.  As of today, beta-1 of my new SQLQueryStress tool is available for ...

When working with SQL Server 2000, I used to have this little trick I'd pull out after exhausting all other ideas for tuning a query.  And I thought that my little trick was dead in SQL Server 2005, but thanks to fellow SQL Server MVP Rob Farley, I am officially reviving my trick from the dead here and now, in this blog post.... But first, ...

Scalar.  Function.Wow.Could any other combination of words evoke the same feeling of encapsulation, information hiding, and simplification of client code?  After years spent developing software in the procedural and OO worlds, it can be difficult--perhaps, even impossible--to migrate over to working with SQL Server and not consider how ...

Originally posted here.  I keep seeing questions on newsgroups about paging in stored procedures, and whether there will be a better way in SQL Server 2005. However, aside from a few answers in newsgroups, I haven't seen any content on how to do it. So I'd like to spend a few minutes and share with you the new features that will make ...