CSS SQL Server Engineers
This is the official team Web Log for Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) SQL Support. Posts are provided by the CSS SQL Escalation Services team.
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: Multiple Log Writer Workers
SQL Server 2016 introduces multiple log writer workers to the engine. For many years the log device...
Author: psssql Date: 04/19/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: Larger Data File Writes
SQL Server uses WriteFileGather for the vast majority of data file write requests. The logic is to...
Author: psssql Date: 04/15/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: Larger Data File Writes
SQL Server uses WriteFileGather for the vast majority of data file write requests. The logic is to...
Author: psssql Date: 04/15/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: Indirect Checkpoint Default
There are two(2) distinct checkpoint paths provided starting with SQL Server 2014, referred to as...
Author: psssql Date: 04/12/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: SOS_RWLock Redesign
The SOS_RWLock is a synchronization primitive used in various places throughout the SQL Server code...
Author: psssql Date: 04/07/2016
Deadlock Monitor Also Grants Locks
One of the best parts of my job is that I get to learn something new each and everyday. This week I...
Author: psssql Date: 04/07/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: Dynamic Memory Object (CMemThread) Partitioning
The CMemThread waits (PWAIT_MEMTHREAD) can be a point of contention as machine sizes advance. The...
Author: psssql Date: 04/06/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: Updated Scheduling Algorithms
SQL Server 2016 gets a scalability boost from scheduling updates. Testing uncovered issues with the...
Author: psssql Date: 04/01/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: Automatic Soft NUMA
As hardware continues to expand and evolve SQL Server testing and customer reports have highlighted...
Author: psssql Date: 03/30/2016
Solve your tempdb problems with memory optimized tables
if you are on SQL Server 2014 and above and have tempdb problems, SQL Server In-Memory OLTP Program...
Author: JackLi Date: 03/25/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: Instant File Initialization
Database Instant File Initialization was added several SQL Server releases ago. The instant file...
Author: psssql Date: 03/25/2016
Repeated login failures on an Azure SQL Virtual Machine
Lately, a user called in for support because he saw repeated failures like below, flooding the...
Author: JackLi Date: 03/23/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: LDF Stamped
When creating or growing the database log file (LDF) a byte pattern is stamped. The pattern...
Author: psssql Date: 03/22/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: Automatic TEMPDB Configuration
Various KBs, whitepapers and blogs have outlined the need for the creation of multiple, TEMPDB...
Author: psssql Date: 03/17/2016
Unable to connect to SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machine–VNET Problem
When moving your SQL Servers from on-premises to Azure cloud, minimal efforts are required to do the...
Author: JackLi Date: 03/17/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: -T1117 and -T1118 changes for TEMPDB and user databases
Configuration of TEMPDB is often critical to scalability and throughput of SQL Server applications....
Author: psssql Date: 03/15/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: Spatial Index Builds Faster
Index creation and tessellation are often intensive, spatial activities. Along with the native and...
Author: psssql Date: 03/10/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: TVPs with Spatial Column(s)
Table Valued Parameters (TVPs) containing spatial columns can be used as input parameter(s) to...
Author: psssql Date: 03/08/2016
SQL Server Parallel Query Placement Decision Logic
Recently I had a conversion with (Jonathan Kehayias jonathan@sqlskills.com) about the placement of...
Author: psssql Date: 03/04/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: Native Spatial Implementation(s)
Spatial data is among, if not the fastest, growing storage types for the SQL Server database. It is...
Author: psssql Date: 03/03/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: DBCC Extended Checks
Last week’s post (SQL 2016 – It Just Runs Faster: DBCC Scales 7x Better) talked about several...
Author: psssql Date: 03/01/2016
Moving your Azure SQL Virtual Machines to a different resource group
When you deal with SQL Server VMs on Azure, there are many operations that you didn’t have to do for...
Author: JackLi Date: 02/26/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster: DBCC Scales 7x Better
Many of you have experienced (MULTI_OBJECT_SCANNER* based) waits while running DBCC CHECKS*(checkdb,...
Author: psssql Date: 02/25/2016
Not every extended event is suited for all situations
SQL Server Extended Events (xevent) are great to troubleshoot many issues including performance...
Author: JackLi Date: 02/24/2016
SQL 2016 - It Just Runs Faster Announcement
SQL Server 2016 'It Just Runs Faster' A bold statement that any SQL Server professional can stand...
Author: psssql Date: 02/23/2016
TLS 1.2 Support for SQL Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012 and 2014
Microsoft is pleased to announce the release of (Transport Layer Security) TLS 1.2 support in all...
Author: psssql Date: 01/31/2016
Wanting your non-sysadmin users to enable certain trace flags without changing your app?
Even with SQL Server support for so many years, we still face something new almost every day....
Author: JackLi Date: 12/30/2015
What to do when you run out of disk space for In-Memory OLTP checkpoint files
While data for memory optimized tables resides in memory all the time with SQL Server 2014 and...
Author: JackLi Date: 12/23/2015
Spool operator and trace flag 8690
If you have seen enough query plans, you for sure ran into spool operators (index spool or table...
Author: JackLi Date: 12/15/2015
SQL Server 2016 Temporal Data Assists Machine Learning Models
Microsoft is always seeking out ways to improve the customer experience and satisfaction. A...
Author: psssql Date: 12/07/2015
MultiSubnet = TRUE Is Now Default Behavior
I get to be the a good new messenger today. We have made changes to the SQL Server Client Provider....
Author: psssql Date: 12/03/2015
Will SQL Server use ‘incomplete’ or ‘dirty’ statistics during online index rebuild?
We had a customer who opened an issue with us and wanted to know the behavior of statistics during...
Author: JackLi Date: 11/16/2015
The given network name is unusable because there was a failure trying to determine if the network name is valid for use by the clustered SQL instance
Have you seen this message before? We see our customers encounter this message while performing SQL...
Author: psssql Date: 11/10/2015
Are My Statistics Correct?
The question is often “Are my statistics up-to-date?” which can be a bit misleading. I...
Author: psssql Date: 11/09/2015
In-Memory OLTP files –what are they and how can I relocate them?
In SQL 2014 and above, you can create memory optimized tables with In-Memory OLTP...
Author: JackLi Date: 08/31/2015
Using the SSMS ConnectionDialog
I was attempting to add the SSMS connection dialog to my utility and ran into problems with...
Author: psssql Date: 08/12/2015
How to get up and running with Oracle and Linked Servers
I have had more Linked Server cases that are setup for an Oracle database than any other non-SQL...
Author: psssql Date: 07/31/2015
Error 17053 when using third party network storage device / SMB file share
Starting SQL Server 2012, we support creating database on a remote SMB file share without requiring...
Author: JackLi Date: 07/21/2015
What build of SQL Server are you using?
As a person administering or supporting a SQL Server install base you will get asked this question...
Author: psssql Date: 07/20/2015
Sparse Files – Supported on both NTFS and REFS
The history of sparse file support capabilities has lead to confusion that I would like to clear up....
Author: psssql Date: 07/17/2015
How It Works: SQL Server (SQLNCLI11) ODBC Driver–Keyset Cursor
This blog is based on SQL Server 2014 CU7’s updated release of SQLNCLI11 and MSSQLODBC...
Author: psssql Date: 07/16/2015
Getting the latest SQL Server Native Client
If you are installing a Service Pack (SP) or Cumulative Update (CU) for SQL Server, you may notice...
Author: Adam W. Saxton Date: 07/14/2015
Upcoming end of support for SQL Server 2005
<This is reposted from...
Author: psssql Date: 06/29/2015
Not able to use PFX format certificate in SQL Server?
[Update 8/24/2015 This issue has been fixed by SQL Server 2014 SP1 cumulative update 2. See KB...
Author: JackLi Date: 06/18/2015
Identifying SQL Server 2014 New Cardinality Estimator issues and Service Pack 1 improvement
In a previous blog, I talked about SQL 2014’s new Cardinality Estimator (new CE) and trace...
Author: JackLi Date: 06/16/2015
Operating System Error (665 – File System Limitation) Not just for DBCC Anymore
The operating system error 665, indicating a file system limitation has been reached continues to...
Author: psssql Date: 06/10/2015
How to get unstuck when using SQL Aliases
I got a case recently where the customer had a SQL Alias setup but was having issues connecting to...
Author: psssql Date: 06/05/2015
Error in XML document. Hexadecimal value 0x1F, is an invalid character
I worked on an issue recently where we were noticing that a large majority of the out of the box...
Author: psssql Date: 06/03/2015
SQL Server Page Life Expectancy (PLE)
This week I was involved in a conversation with Paul Randal relating to PLE per node vs PLE server...
Author: psssql Date: 05/14/2015
XEvent Timestamp is a large integer value not the expected datatime value
The timestamp column for XEvent is stored internally as an offset from the start of the...
Author: psssql Date: 05/04/2015