A Quiet Morning
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So here's my day. Wake up, get some coffee. Check on email and the site, then get some food for my little boy. Then go throw hay, and get grain for the horses' breakfast, scoop a few, ah, droppings, then write an editorial. I know it sounds like fun, and any of you are welcome to join me whenever you want. I'm hoping to get David Reed to join me this week as he passes through Denver after the SQL Ranger training program on his way home from Redmond.
The SQL Server Rangers are a new program, similar to the Exchange Rangers and I;m hoping to get some more information, but today I found an interesting blog post from the PSS engineers, specifically Bob Dorr, who I interviewed here awhile back. It talks about some of the urban legends and I was very surprised to read a few things.
First there isn't necessarily one thread per file, so having 10 filegroups, each with 6 files doesn't necessarily give you better performance. I have been guilty of giving this advice to people (tempered with the pain in the arse it requires if you need to restore the db), but apparently there's more to it. After reading it twice, I'm not sure I understand it, but there's schedulers involved, it doesn't necessarily help Tempdb, and having the same size files and trace flag 1118 enabled help.
There's also an interesting look at the disk queue length and "2" as the magic number. Bob gives some great information on other counters to check. I won't repeat them here; check the blog if you're interested.
I'm not sure of the blog phenomenon at Microsoft and other companies. It seems that a great many people start them and then bail because they're not really writers and it's a pain. And they have other work to do. But I have learned some amazing things that I was surprised aren't in white papers or other technical documents. Personally, since I comb through many blogs, eliminating duplicates and cross posts, I think that's one of the strengths of Database Weekly.
I get lots of email telling me how much people like the site, which offsets the numerous nasty-grams I also get. I've (along with Andy and Brian over the years) tried to build a couple of great SQL Server resources. I really appreciate all the feedback and please drop u suggestions for things we can do better.
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That blog post is a great find, though Im with you in that I'll have to read it a few more times. Im biased of course, but I think Database Weekly is a great resource, I sure don't have time to troll through all the possible sources of info to find the nuggets.
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>>"scoop a few, ah, droppings, then write an editorial"
BWAAAA-HAAAAA-HAAAAA!!!! Oh, I laughed out loud! Almost sounds like a prerequisite! Way too funny! Thanks for the great laugh, Steve!
--Jeff Moden
RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally) -
Hey Steve,
Do you get paid for scooping? Must be a pretty penny as all I ever see you do is write all these dam editorials.
-cjb
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No pay. It's the price of having a wife that loves horses.
Hey, I mess up the QODs as well as edit the content here.
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(tempered with the pain in the arse it requires if you need to restore the db)
OK, Steve - time to 'fess up... Where are you from? Nobody in the USA that I've ever had contact with has ever used that pronunciation of 'arse' (usually 'ass') unless they've been a Pom, Aussie or Kiwi (or secretly wished they were....
)[and just to spread the insult around, I'll say that the Irish and Scots can be included with the Poms because they're all the same anyway
HA! Let the flames start now.... 
]A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
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