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Month: November 2012

Performance Problems with SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition Under CAL Licensing

Numerous licensing changes were introduced in SQL Server 2012; the most significant was the move from socket-based licensing to core-based licensing for Enterprise Edition. One of the challenges that Microsoft faced with this change was providing a migration path for customers that previously used Server+CAL based licensing for Enterprise Edition prior to SQL Server 2012. Customers under Software Assurance can upgrade to SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition and still use Server+CAL licensing (also known as "grandfathering") but with a limitation to 20 logical processors, as documented in the SQL Server 2012 Licensing Guide.

  ◆  November 27, 2012
20
Database smarter with deeper insights for Microsoft SQL
The Benefits of Indexing Foreign Keys

Primary and foreign keys are fundamental characteristics of relational databases, as originally noted in E.F. Codd’s paper, “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks”, published in 1970. The quote often repeated is, "The key, the whole key, and nothing but the key, so help me Codd."

In this post, Erin Stellato (@erinstellato) discusses the benefits of adding indexes on top of declared referential constraints.

  ◆  November 20, 2012
16
Quick Tip – Speed Up a Slow Restore from the Transaction Log

Here's a quick tip for you:

During some restore operations in SQL Server, the transaction log redo step might be taking an unusually long time. Depending somewhat on the version and edition of SQL Server you've installed, you may be able to increase performance by tinkering with the readahead performance for the redo operations. To do this, you should use the MAXTRANSFERSIZE parameter of the RESTORE statement. For example, if you set MAXTRANSFERSIZE = 1048576, it'll use 1MB buffers.

  ◆  November 14, 2012
3
Ten Common Threats to Execution Plan Quality

The quality of an execution plan is highly dependent on the accuracy of the estimated number of rows output by each plan operator. If the estimated number of rows is significantly skewed from the actual number of rows, this can have a significant impact on the quality of a query's execution plan. Poor plan quality can be responsible for excessive I/O, inflated CPU, memory pressure, decreased throughput and reduced overall concurrency.

  ◆  November 13, 2012
11