How do you know if you have a performance issue in your database environment? Well, let's put it in these terms. You notice it (the good), users start calling technical support and complaining about how everything is slow (the bad) or you don't know about your performance issues (the ugly). Try to never get in to the last category.
Achieving best performance is an iterative process where you need to define a set of tasks that you will execute on a regular basics and monitor their results. Here is a list that will give you an idea and guide you through this process:
- Establish the baseline
- Define the problem
- Fix one thing at a time
- Test and re-establish the baseline
- Repeat everything
Establishing the baseline is the critical part. In most case scenarios, it is not possible without real stress testing. Example: How many users' systems can you handle on the current configuration? The next step is to measure the processing time. Do your queries or stored procedures require...