Performance Implications of Nullable Columns

To null or not to null: that is the question. The specific focus here is performance implications of NULL versus NOT NULL columns.

You are looking to coorelate performance data with...

In SQL Server 2000, where are user defined...

Controlling Transactions and Locks in SQL 2000 and 2005 - Part 3

In the preceding articles of this series, Lock Granularity, Transactions, and ACID were introduced. Common lock types, such as Shared, Exclusive, and Update were explored, as well as using SP_Lock to obtain current system lock information. In this article, the normal internal SQL locking methods will be manipulated using Lock Hints in order to obtain finer lock control.

Why would the use of a GUID instead...

You wish to monitor performance on your SQL...

When SQL Server restarts, does it use the...

Controlling Transactions and Locks in SQL 2000 and 2005 - Part 2

In order for a transaction to meet the requirements of ACID, locks are employed to insure data integrity and multi-user access. The scope, or number of rows held by a lock, is referred to as Lock Granularity. This month, we will begin by introducing several different types of lock modes employed by MS SQL.

Finding Duplicate Indexes in Large SQL Server Databases

One important component of tuning a large, heavily used database, is to ensure that the tables are indexed optimally: enough indexing, but not too much indexing for the application you are running. There are rules of thumb about index tuning, but the entire issue is so complex that there's no "silver bullet" solution that will work for every case. However, in tuning indexes we can generally say that it's not a good idea to maintain duplicate indexes on the same data. SQL Server does not provide checks to prevent duplicate indexes from being created, as long as the names are different

Are UDFs Harmful to SQL Server Performance?

SQL Server 2000 introduced user-defined functions (UDFs), and they were immediately hailed as a great tool for encapsulating repetitive code, as well as allowing you to perform more complicated processing directly in an SQL expression. On its face, that claim is valid. You can certainly improve readability and maintainability with UDFs. But cleaner code will be cold comfort if your queries bog down and lock up your server.