October 16, 2009 at 7:52 am
Would you consider hiring a specialist consultant for performance and scalability issues in SQL?
A quick Yes/No would be great - just doing a little research. Thanks.
October 16, 2009 at 7:54 am
No
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[highlight]Recommended Articles on How to help us help you and[/highlight]
[highlight]solve commonly asked questions[/highlight]
Forum Etiquette: How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help by Jeff Moden[/url]
Managing Transaction Logs by Gail Shaw[/url]
How to post Performance problems by Gail Shaw[/url]
Help, my database is corrupt. Now what? by Gail Shaw[/url]
October 18, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Why No? Imagine you have a small company with a website you paid a contractor for, and there is SQL Server under the hood, and everything is working fine.. and then the 1000th customer logs on, and all of a sudden your website is crumbling to pieces.. And you are by no means a DB professional - what do you do?
I'd say Yes to the OP question.
Regards
Piotr
...and your only reply is slàinte mhath
October 18, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Yes, if you don't know what to do. Even if you have staff, hire someone for a couple days to examine the system and train someone on your staff.
October 18, 2009 at 6:25 pm
"Yes" or "No" are the wrong answers... for the information given in the original post, the correct answer is "It Depends"... 😉
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
October 18, 2009 at 6:30 pm
To hire and to consider hiring are two different things Jeff 😉
...and your only reply is slàinte mhath
October 18, 2009 at 7:17 pm
If you've got the skills in-house to do such a review and those resources can be freed up enough to do the job properly then you don't need to bring anyone else in. Preferably the review is done by someone who doesn't work with the system actively, as an "external" view can sometimes pick up things that the day-to-day workers haven't picked up on.
However, if you don't have the skills and/or time then you do need to bring someone in. It's a great opportunity for your in-house team to pick up some additional skills.
It's also reasonably common for the business to want a third-party to look at a system even when the in-house people have reviewed a system and have suggestions regarding improving performance. A couple of times we've had third-parties come in and say "implement what your people have developed/suggested". It's a little depressing when that happens, but at least the improvements get implemented and it lends weight to any future recommendations that you make.
October 18, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Piotr.Rodak (10/18/2009)
To hire and to consider hiring are two different things Jeff 😉
Heh... one is a waste of time and effort without the other and both are a waste of time if it doesn't really need to be done. It Depends...
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
October 19, 2009 at 4:56 am
Thank you for the helpful replies it seems like the concensus is 'it depends'.
Rather than my describing a single theoretical context,
has anyone actualy hired a consultant to advise on SQL performance issues or to help your SQL database scale?
Can you describe how you went about it?
Your input is much appreciated!
October 19, 2009 at 5:23 am
endeavour (10/16/2009)
Would you consider hiring a specialist consultant for performance and scalability issues in SQL?
Yes, absolutely. If you have no idea where to start and you have a performance/scalability problem then getting someone in who knows the area and knows what to do is invaluable, especially if you can shadow them, learn from them, ask questions, etc, etc.
Disclaimer: I am a consultant specialising in SQL performance and scalability.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
October 19, 2009 at 9:01 am
I've typically done the work myself, but there was a case where we were stuck. In a large shop, we had a Microsoft TAM and contacted him. He arranged for an MCS (Microsoft Consulting Services) consultant to come to our company for 2 days. We booked a conference room and presented actual issues with servers. The consultant worked through the issues on his laptop, connected to a projector, and showed us what things he would look for/at and why.
I know a number of people around the country that make their living doing this. I can recommend a few if you'd like. Is this the DB engine, and specific issues with T-SQL and an application?
October 19, 2009 at 9:19 am
endeavour (10/19/2009)
has anyone actualy hired a consultant to advise on SQL performance issues or to help your SQL database scale?
My introduction to performance tuning was when the company I then worked for (6 or so years ago) got a consultant in to help with some major performance problems. He worked with an employee (me) and guided, advised and taught, making sure that we could handle things once he had gone. It was a very successful 'intervention', system throughput doubled. I can't say how they went about selecting a company. I wasn't involved in that at all.
Disclaimer: That consultant is now my colleague.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
October 21, 2009 at 6:32 am
Yes.
Even if you have talent in-house for tuning performance, you might need to bring in outside help if you're busy or, worst of all, when management doesn't trust that you're doing a good job.
The hard part is actually finding someone that's competent.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
October 21, 2009 at 6:38 am
endeavour (10/19/2009)
Thank you for the helpful replies it seems like the concensus is 'it depends'.Rather than my describing a single theoretical context,
has anyone actualy hired a consultant to advise on SQL performance issues or to help your SQL database scale?
Can you describe how you went about it?
Your input is much appreciated!
We've had successful and failed experiences with this. It's tough. We identified the need to get someone in because there was more work than we could do. So we interviewed and brought in a consultant. Who promptly screwed up the design, compromised with the developers and provided inadequate tests & proof of his solutions, fought with everyone when his work was questioned...
We also brought in a Microsoft consultant that I'll recommend by name, Bill Sulcius. Get him quick, he's near retirement. I learned a lot from him, he hit the ground running and provided a great deal of value for the money.
The most important things you need to do is first, define what level of performance you want. Something realistic and measurable. Second, get the consultant to agree to it, bot that it's deliverable and that he can deliver. Make sure you have measurements ready so that you ascertain that the goals have been reached. Get documentation out of them showing what they did, why, and what the before and after results of the tests were. Finally, test the heck out of it. Load test it with lots of connections, lots of transactions, lots of data, and identify when the fixes that have been put in place will break, if they will.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
October 22, 2009 at 9:23 am
Yes, and I agree with others who said that doing so even if you do have in-house resources. Primary reason for that is that a good tuning consultant will almost certainly be MUCH better than your staff. Some tuners (I know one very intimately :cool:) have spent a decade or more on just that one topic (relational performance) and there is a LOT of things they will know that others who have many job requirements will never have been exposed to.
Best,
Kevin G. Boles
SQL Server Consultant
SQL MVP 2007-2012
TheSQLGuru on googles mail service
Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 22 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply