1. SQL Performance 2011/12 Joe Chang, SolidQ www.qdpma.com www.qdpma.com http://sqlblog.com/blogs/joe_chang/default.aspx jchang6@yahoo.com

2. 2011 Hardware is Powerful & Cheap – CPU (cores), memory, and now IO too! Quad-core since 2006, 1GHz since 2000 Is Performance still a concern? – Yes, along with fundamentals Modern Performance Strategy – Can handle minor inefficiencies – Identify and circumvent the really bad things

3. Modern Hardware 4-12 cores per processor socket 16GB DIMM at less than $1K SSD – Enterprise grade SSD still moderately expensive Both SLC and MLC – Consumer SSD – really cheap, $3-4K per TB Uneven performance characteristics over time Desired IO performance: 1-2GB/s, 20-50K IOPS

4. Hardware Baseline 2011 Entry 1 Xeon E3 quad-core 16GB memory – 4 x 4GB unbuffered ECC SSD options: – 2-4 SATA SSDs – 1-2 PCI-E SSDs Mid-range 2 Xeon 5600 6-core 48 – 192GB – 6 x 8GB to 12 x 16GB SSD options – 16+ SATA SSDs – 4-5 PCI-E SSDs

5. Performance Fundamentals Network round-trips – Owner qualified, case correct Log write latencies – Sufficiently low to support transaction volume Not necessarily separate data and log disks Normalization – correct data trumps all! Indexes – a few good ones, and not too many! SQL – that the optimizer

6. What can go wrong? With immense hardware resources And a great database engine – What can go wrong? Following a fixed set of rules and procedures – Basic transactions processing should work well – If your process does something unanticipated Some things can go horribly wrong

7. Performance Concepts Query Optimizer Execution plan operators – Formula for component operation Data distribution statistics – to estimate rows & pages, automatically updated – Rules when estimate not possible Stored procedure compile rules – Parameters and variables

8. Stored Procedure Basics

9. Parameters and Variables On compile – Parameter values used to for row estimate – Variables – assume unknown value Consider effect of skewed distribution

10. Parameter & Variable 6 rows for value 1 4 rows for value unknown Consider impact for skewed data distributions

11. Stored Procedure Compile Options WITH RECOMPILE OPTIMIZE FOR Plan Guide Temp table – KEEP PLAN, KEEPFIXED PLAN

12. Compile & Execute Time Plan reuse desired when – Compile cost is high relative to execute cost Recompile desired when – Execute cost is high relative to compile cost

13. Statistics Basics

14. Statistics No statistics – table variables Temp table – statistics auto recompute – 6 row modified, 500 rows, every 20% thereafter Statistics sampling – Random page, how to handle skewed distribution? Upper and lower bounds – Problems caused by incrementing columns Propagation errors

15. Statistics Recompute Scenario: start with accurate statistics Update column with new values – That did not previously exist If fewer than 20% of rows updated – Auto-recompute is not triggered

16. Sampling Default sampling percentage is usually good Caution: not a random row sample! – Random sampling of page From nonclustered index if available If there is correlation between pages & values – Then serious over estimation possible

17. Out of range Statistics sampling tries to identify lower and upper bound

18. Bad Execution Plan Examples Not comprehensive

19. Scenarios Or condition Multiple optional search arguments Skewed distributions – 1 business logic for Small and large data sets – Reports for 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year Statistics related problems – Resulting in horrible execution plan Not comprehensive

20. When the Query Optimizer Does not understand you

21. Simple OR Conditions

22. Simple Index Seek

23. OR Condition in Join

24. Alternative – Union

25. UNION and UNION ALL UNION – Only distinct rows – Sort to eliminate duplicates Can be expensive for high row counts UNION ALL – All rows – No sort to eliminate duplicates

26. Multiple Optional SARGs This was suppose to work, but does not

27. Parameterized SQL

28. Skew and Range Variation

29. Statistics Out-of Range

30. Statistics Out of Range (cont.)

31. Table Variable No Statistics assumes 1 row, 1page Why? No recompiles

32. Loop Join – Scan Inner Source Really Bad News Estimate 1 row

33. The Correct Plan Hash Join forced with hint Estimate 1 row

34. Loop Join vs. Hash Join

35. Alternative Plan with Index

36. Temp Table versus CTE Consider options – SELECT xxx INTO #Temp – FROM Sql Main Expression – WITH tmp AS (SELECT xxx FROM Sql) Main Expression