Wayne Sheffield

My blog about SQL Server

Browsing Posts in SQL

Most of the DBCC commands return their results as textual output, even if you have SSMS configured to return result sets to a grid. This makes examining the output a manual process that is prone to errors. It sure would be nice if there was a way to return the output to a grid. If […]

October… the month of Halloween. Spooky events. SQL Server has all kinds of Halloween-ish themed activities like Split Brains, Zombies, Ghosts, Phantoms, and of course Halloween itself. In this post, we’re going to mill about with Phantoms a bit. Phantoms in SQL Server are actually called “Phantom Reads”. This ectoplasmic phenomenon manifests itself when an […]

Page Splits 101 In SQL Server, a page split occurs on index pages when a row is required to be on a certain page (because of the index key), and there isn’t enough room on the page for it. This can be from either an insert operation, or an update operation. When this occurs, that […]

TCP Chimney Offload transfers network traffic workload processing from the CPU to a network adapter that supports TCP Chimney Offload. This feature was introduced with Windows Server 2003 SP2, and it was called the Microsoft Scalable Networking Pack (SNP). Since Windows Server 2008, these features are a base part of these operating systems, so they […]

Are you going to the PASS Summit this year? (and if not… why not?) Are you coming in to Seattle on or before Monday? Are you not attending any of the wonderful precons at the PASS Summit on Monday? Then I have a great deal for you. Free SQL Training! Several friends have teamed up […]

Rename SQL Server Sometimes you make a mistake, and forget to rename a syspred’d server before installing SQL Server. Or perhaps your corporate naming standard has changed, and you need to rename a server. Maybe you like to waste the time involved in troubleshooting connection issues after a server rename. In any case, you now […]

This post is re-published from my original post on SQL Solutions Group. I hope that you enjoy it. In my last article, I started off talking about checking various settings that make a performance difference prior to jumping into query tuning. This article continues the investigation into performance affecting settings, by jumping straight into the […]

It’s that time of the month… the time when all of the T-SQL bloggers have a party and blog about a specific topic. This month, the host is my friend Jason Brimhall (b/t). The topic that he has selected is “Sharpen Something”. Specifically, he wants us to: I am asking you to not only write […]

Looking for the latest Windows or SQL Server updates … or tools? Links to all the latest patches and tools are right here!

This post is re-published from my original post on SQL Solutions Group. I hope that you enjoy it. When investigating a performance issue, the desired end result is already known… you need to make the queries run faster. It’s been my experience that most performance problems involve optimizing the query that is being run—sometimes the […]