SQL Server 2008 Query Performance Tuning Distilled (Expert's Voice in SQL Server) [Paperback]

Sajal Dam (Author), Grant Fritchey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 16, 2009 | Series: Expert's Voice in SQL Server

SQL Server 2008 Query Performance Tuning Distilled presents a direct trouble–shooting methodology for identifying poorly-performing stored procedures and queries, isolating the causes of that poor performance, and fixing the underlying problems. Each chapter is dedicated to one of the top causes of poorly performing queries and shows methods for identifying and dealing with the problems in that chapter’s domain. Emphasis is always put upon or placed upon practical methods that you can put to immediate use in your day–to–day work. SQL Server 2008 functionality, tips, and tricks are emphasized in each subject area.

• Emphasizes the practical. Does not bury readers in theory.
• Gives readers practical techniques to immediately apply in their daily work.
• Dedicates a chapter to each of the most common, performance–related problem areas.

What you’ll learn

• Identify and fix poorly performing queries that are hurting your business.
• Read query execution plans and identify bottlenecks in performance.
• Record system performance metrics for trend analysis.
• Learn to design databases and write Transact–SQL code to avoid common problems.
• Understand what an index is, what it does, and how to build one.
• Use industry accepted best practices and understand how to develop your own to arrive at optimal database performance.

Who this book is for

SQL Server Query Performance Tuning Distilled is aimed at anyone writing business–critical Transact–SQL queries, and also at those responsible for the continued good performance of those queries. Developers, database administrators, business intelligence analysts, and any others who develop Transact–SQL queries will find this book an indispensable resource for getting the most out of what SQL Server 2008 has to offer.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sajal Dam holds a master's of technology degree in computer science from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and has been working with Microsoft technologies for over 12 years. He has developed an extensive background in designing database applications and managing software development. Sajal also possesses significant experience in troubleshooting and optimizing the performance of Microsoft-based applications, from front-end web pages to back-end databases.

While working at Microsoft, Sajal helped many Fortune 500 companies design scalable database solutions and maximize the performance of their database environments. As an IT strategist at Dell, Sajal manages Dell's vast database infrastructure by optimizing not only the databases, but also the database management processes, tools, and use of best practices. He also works closely with the application development teams and vendors, including Microsoft, in analyzing and resolving performance bottlenecks.

Grant Fritchey works as a development database administrator for FM Global, an industry-leading engineering and insurance company. In his previous time as a database administrator and developer, he has worked at three failed dot-coms, a major consulting company, and a global bank. He has developed large-scale applications in languages such as VB, C#, and Java and has lived with SQL Server from the hoary days of 6.0, right through to 2008. His nickname at work is "The Scary DBA." He even has an official name plate, and he displays it proudly.

Grant volunteers for the Professional Association of SQL Server Users (PASS) and has written and published articles on various topics relating to SQL Server at Simple-Talk, SQL Server Central, SQL Server Performance, the PASS web site, SQL Standard, and the SQL Server Worldwide Users Group. He is the author of the book Dissecting SQL Server Execution Plans. He is one of the founding officers of the Southern New England SQL Server Users Group (SNESSUG).

Outside work, Grant kayaks, learns and teaches self-defense, brews his own beer, chops wood to heat his house, raises his kids, and helps lead a pack of Cub Scouts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 600 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (March 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430219025
• ISBN-13: 978-1430219026
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #68,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #27 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Software Design, Testing & Engineering > Testing
  • #42 in Books > Computers & Technology > Databases > SQL
  • #96 in Books > Computers & Technology > Databases > Database Management Systems

More About the Author

Grant Fritchey has more than twenty years experience in IT. That time was spent in technical support, development and database administration. Grant currently works as a Product Evangelist at Red Gate Software. Grant writes articles for publication at SQL Server Central and Simple-Talk. He has published books including, "SQL Server Execution Plans" and "SQL Server 2012 Query Performance Tuning." Grant has written chapters for "Beginning SQL Server 2012 Administration", "SQL Server Team-based Development" "SQL Server MVP Deep Dives Volume 2" and "Pro SQL Server 2012 Practices." Grant Fritchey was one of the founding officers of the Southern New England SQL Server Users Group.

Grant has been awarded as a Microsoft SQL Server MVP since 2009.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic for Performance Tuners April 21, 2009

By Brent Ozar

Format:Paperback

My gauge of an amazing book is simple: if I've got a question, and I reach for the book BEFORE I search the web, then it's an amazing book.

Several times in the last two weeks, I reached for this book first.

Query performance tuning is the art of reading a query's execution plan, figuring out why it's not fast, and then determining the most cost-effective way to make it faster. Anybody can throw more indexes in and just hope it speeds up, but as the book illustrates, sometimes that can hurt more than help.

To do a good job, the tuner needs to know about indexing, statistics, execution plans, compilations, blocking, deadlocks, and query design issues that can force a query to perform poorly. Some of this stuff is covered in abstract terms in college classes, but for the most part, all of us - developers, DBAs, sysadmins - are pretty much unprepared to guess what's going on inside the SQL Server engine.

When you first design and deploy an application, that's a great thing: you don't need to know what's going on inside the black box. SQL Server handles a lot of load with the default settings, with pretty much any application design, before things start to creak and groan. I've seen people build amazingly big SQL Server applications without any knowledge of how indexes or execution plans work. When you start to run into performance problems, you need expert help fast - and that's what this book provides.

Regardless of your seniority level, you're going to find this book's price an extremely worthwhile investment. The book's authors, Grant Fritchey and Sajal Dam, strike a great balance between bringing you up to speed versus diving into advanced concepts. Chapter 4 on Index Analysis is a great example.... It spends the first few pages bringing the beginners up to speed on what an index is and how B-trees work. Then it gradually layers on an explanation of how you would approach index design and why the width of your index matters. The explanation includes queries that prove the concepts, with screenshots of results where appropriate. The discussion ramps up to more advanced topics like covering indexes, filtered indexes, and compression.

I really like the organization of this book because it progresses in the same way that I'd recommend training for a performance tuner. If you need to make an application run faster, read the book in order. Don't be tempted to jump to, say, execution plan analysis - you'll make poor decisions without understanding the concepts discussed earlier.

I've been performance tuning applications for years, trying to wring every last dollar's worth out of my hardware to make our applications run faster, and I keep learning things as I go through this book. Normally, I try to read the entire book cover to cover before posting a review, but in this case, it's going to be quite a while before I finish the book. I just keep reading a chapter, catching enough things I didn't know before, and then stopping to apply that knowledge and test it out in my lab. I highly recommend it. Read more ›

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars SQL Server 2008 Query Performance Tuning Distilled May 5, 2009

By -tg

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Great book. I've been waiting for the re-write to Sajal Dam's book on SQL Server 2000 performance tuning for a very long time. The only problem with it is that that too many example scripts do not match the code in the book. [case in point: On pg. 289 it references a script called stats_changes.sql. The code in the download is nothing like the code on pg. 290. Ditto for pg. 177 and several others.] This leaves the reader to figure it out for themself. The book includes an email address for the author that rejects all attempts to send him email and I see no updates to the download since it was first published. If these oversites are corrected, this would be a great learning resource for the SQL Server professional charged with performance tuning responsibilities.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A great reference book on SQL Tuning. November 23, 2009

By Sudheer K. Maharana

Format:Paperback

One of the finest book on SQL Server Perf Tuning. To be honest I used to have the SQL Server performance tuning book by Ken England on SQL 2000 and looking for it's sequel on 2005. I went to the book store and ordered the book but it was disappointing. Then this book was given to me by one of my friends. A great reference book as I was expecting. Lot of theories and matching examples make this book stand out from the rest. SQL Server is just not SQL Tuning. It includes Database System tuning. This book has given a dedicated chapter in making you understand the same. It gives you a perspective on how to approach to a performance tuning from identification of the performance bottleneck to troubleshooting the problem. I enjoyed reading chapters on indexing and Index, Statistics and Execution Cache Analysis. However, I wanted to see more detail on tuning XML and Service Broker.

I will suggest this book for other DBAs and SQL Programmers who want to know the theories behind Index and Statistics, BLocking and Deadlocking, Fragmentation.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Performance Tuning actually distilled December 21, 2009

By Rajkumar Ramasamy

Format:Paperback

A very good reference book on SQL server performance tuning on diverse directions.

On the initial chapters, you can find a good introduction on Performance tuning, Performance analysis and on the Database Engine Tuning Advisor. There are various analysis and optimization techniques explained in later chapters. There is comprehensive information about most common performance issues that occurs due to Query designs and deadlocks.

We can find more information on tuning indexes like when and where to apply what type of index. Later, the workload optimization techniques explains ways to identify and research expensive queries and jobs and "What not" to do to avoid performance issues. This book helps not only to write individual queries without any performance flaws, it also helps to find where the flaws are in existing queries. I would like to mention that there are good of examples of queries (which everyone look for) which make the reader to understand where performance issues or bottlenecks occur and what to do with it.

One good sense I had when I started reading the book is it isn't that hard to read through the book even you are new to performance tuning in SQL server. I would strongly recommend this book for all database performance professionals (Even the beginners in Performance Tuning).

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars SQL Server DBA Rave Review October 2, 2010

By Thomas Leblanc

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

From a Simple-Talk article to eBook on Query Plans help create a great book from Grant Fritchey. I met Grant at SQL PASS in 2008 and then at SQLSaturday in New York, where he demonstrated addictive enthusiasm about SQL Server. I bought this book as soon as it went on sell. This was a missing piece of information for the SQL Server community until Grant and Sajal brought this book to the market. Please buy and read this book if you are a DBA or developer that has to tune queries in your job.

Thanks,
Thomas LeBlanc, MCDBA & MCITP