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Disk Partition Alignment ( SANs and Diskpart )

As a further post to my series on what else can affect SQL Server Performance here’s the thorny issue of disk partition alignment. Disclaimer : I don’t get to configure SANs, places I work have dedicated teams and it’s unlikely a DBA would be considered a reference point regarding storage. What I can...

Posted to Grumpy Old DBA (Weblog) by GrumpyOldDBA on 04-03-2008
Configuring x64 SQL Server

I often read a number of forum posts concerning performance / configuration issues with x64 SQL Server. I've also found some interesting views on how much memory you can allocate to SQL Server on a x64 install ( I don't have any experience of ia64 - sorry ). Sort of cross purposes I've been...

Posted to Grumpy Old DBA (Weblog) by GrumpyOldDBA on 03-26-2008
Bug in UK SSUG 2008

It was discovered earlier today that SSUG 2008 was unable to distinguish a Thursday when it fell before a bank holiday friday and as a consequence SSUG would be unable to function on March 20th. It's not thought that other Thursdays that fall before a Friday bank holiday will cause similar problems,...

Posted to Grumpy Old DBA (Weblog) by GrumpyOldDBA on 03-19-2008
Things that may not be right on your SQL server.

Ø When performance is under the spotlight most often the finger is pointed at SQL Server, here’s a short list of things that may impact your server performance. Disclaimer : This is my personal hit list and in no particular order. Out of date drivers Look mainly for HBA, NIC and storage controllers Incorrect...

Posted to Grumpy Old DBA (Weblog) by GrumpyOldDBA on 03-12-2008
Only once every four years thank goodness!

I never cease to be amazed by what I discover within IT, mostly these days I'm more disappointed than anything else, I'm not a lover of the let's bash Microsoft about security patches or we should all use Linux / Open source as in the latter I'm sure if the most popular o/s was linux it would be full...

Posted to Grumpy Old DBA (Weblog) by GrumpyOldDBA on 02-29-2008
dbcc dropcleanbuffers - or maybe not

As a consequence of another action I was prompted to want to clear the buffer cache – or to be more precise I tried to clear the buffer cache. So stepping back, what happens if you install more memory than the combined size of your databases? Most would probably suggest that it’s a waste of time, however...

Posted to Grumpy Old DBA (Weblog) by GrumpyOldDBA on 02-22-2008
viewing object locks in SQL 2000

It's old stuff but I just thought I might post this code just in case someone else finds it useful:- I was looking at a process which was blocking its self, as this was a data extract ( only reads ) allegedly there shouldn't have been blocking, the simplest way was to examine the locks which were current...

Posted to Grumpy Old DBA (Weblog) by GrumpyOldDBA on 02-13-2008
Custom Reports for the DBA without SSRS

Creating Custom Reports for the DBA ( You can find this and other information at http://www.grumpyolddba.co.uk/ ) 1. You don’t need SQL Server Reporting Services to do this 2. You don’t need IIS installed 3. You do need SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 on your client tools e.g. management studio 4. You...

Posted to Grumpy Old DBA (Weblog) by GrumpyOldDBA on 02-12-2008
Things I learned today

I'm involved with some tuning as usually tends to be the case and amongst the work I've been doing a couple of interesting points arose. Firstly we upgraded the memory in the production cluster, what was unusual for me was that we added more memory than we had databases, I've never worked a production...

Posted to Grumpy Old DBA (Weblog) by GrumpyOldDBA on 01-30-2008
Perfmon Counters thresholds

Just in case you missed the link to The Premier's blog http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/thepremiers/archive/2008/01/23/monitoring-sql-server-using-performance-monitor.aspx they've just posted details of a perfmon trace viewer. But what is more important is the attached documentation on perfmon counters...

Posted to Grumpy Old DBA (Weblog) by GrumpyOldDBA on 01-24-2008

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