SQL Server Diagnostic Information Queries for April 2019

This month, I have just made some minor improvements to most of the query sets, mainly in the comments and documentation. I have been trying to fix the broken...

Database Recovery Monitoring with XE

Database recovery (crash recovery) is a nerve wrenching situation under the wrong conditions. It can be as bad as a root canal and just as necessary to endure that...
The...

How to Fix Databases with High VLF Count

In our earlier posts on recovery, we’ve covered the importance of properly managing SQL Server Transaction Log file growth. This includes how to detect databases with a high VLF...

Adding Custom Error Messages

How to fix the error “String or binary data would be truncated”

Brent Ozar tackles a common error.

Finding Tables with Few Dependencies

This blog post talks about how to find small sets of tables that are joined to each other, but nothing else.

Testing Databases: What’s Required?

Phil Factor reviews the various types of database test that need to run during development work, what sort of test data they require, and the challenges with managing this data, and in keeping the test cell stocked with the correct database, and data, in a way that allows rapid cycles of database testing.

Are Differential Backups Necessary?

SQL Server natively supports 3 types of backups: Full, Differential and Log. Full backups take a complete backup of the entire database, while Log backups take a backup of the database’s transaction log. So, What are Differential backups? Are they really necessary?

Using Column Sets for Sparsely Populated Columns

SQL Server has a little-known feature called Column Sets that is very useful when dealing with large numbers of sparse columns. Sparse columns are useful when you need a table with many columns where the rows are sparsely populated with data.

The Collapse Operator

The Collapse operator is typically used to optimize update processing, usually in combination with Split and Sort operators. This operator combines combinations of rows that represent a delete and an insert for the same key value (or set of key values in the case of a multi-column key) into a single row that represents an update. Other rows are passed unchanged.