Book Image

Learn T-SQL Querying - Second Edition

By : Pedro Lopes, Pam Lahoud
Book Image

Learn T-SQL Querying - Second Edition

By: Pedro Lopes, Pam Lahoud

Overview of this book

Data professionals seeking to excel in Transact-SQL (T-SQL) for Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL Database often lack comprehensive resources. This updated second edition of Learn T-SQL Querying focuses on indexing queries and crafting elegant T-SQL code, catering to all data professionals seeking mastery in modern SQL Server versions and Azure SQL Database. Starting with query processing fundamentals, this book lays a solid foundation for writing performant T-SQL queries. You’ll explore the mechanics of the Query Optimizer and Query Execution Plans, learning how to analyze execution plans for insights into current performance and scalability. Through dynamic management views (DMVs) and dynamic management functions (DMFs), you’ll build diagnostic queries. This book thoroughly covers indexing for T-SQL performance and provides insights into SQL Server’s built-in tools for expedited resolution of query performance and scalability issues. Further, hands-on examples will guide you through implementing features such as avoiding UDF pitfalls, understanding predicate SARGability, Query Store, and Query Tuning Assistant. By the end of this book, you‘ll have developed the ability to identify query performance bottlenecks, recognize anti-patterns, and skillfully avoid such pitfalls.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Query Processing Fundamentals
4
Part 2: Dos and Don’ts of T-SQL
9
Part 3: Assembling Our Query Troubleshooting Toolbox

Summary

While the examples in this chapter are only a small sample, hopefully at this point, we can see how DMVs and DMFs can be a powerful troubleshooting tool when it comes to diagnosing query performance issues. They are lightweight, easy to use, and provide a breadth of information that is useful for zeroing in on the performance issues that were covered in Chapter 5, Writing Elegant T-SQL Queries, and Chapter 6, Discovering T-SQL Anti-Patterns in Depth.

While DMVs are great for point-in-time and cumulative analysis, there are some issues that can only be diagnosed by catching queries and related data in real time. This is where tracing with Extended Events (XEvents) is useful. In the next chapter, we will introduce XEvents and discuss how to set up the new XEvent profiler trace that can capture all the queries that are executed against a server in real time.