Darling Data✓

You can get all my SQL Server training and consulting services in one place. Learn how to fix problems on your own, or get immediate help:

🎥 Mind Your Darn Aliases 🎥

Readers block writers. Writers block readers. A report takes down the entire app. This is not a riddle. It is just Tuesday under Read Committed. It does not have to be. Read Committed Is Cruel by Default: #PASSDataSummit West.

🎥 SQL Server Performance Office Hours Episode 94 🎥

My doctor asked how many rows I was expecting. Ten, I said. It was two million. He stayed calm. SQL Server also stays calm about this. That is the whole problem. Cardinality estimates and other lies at my #PASSDataSummit West precon.

November DarlingData release: I Know What You Queried Last Summer. sp_QuickieStore and sp_QueryReproBuilder averages now match Query Store. In one test, a plan showed 1,178 ms of average CPU. The real number was 96. Plus a pile of fixes and speedups.

I'll make your team faster with AI (in exchange for money). A one-day workshop, on-site or remote. Your developers and DBAs learn to let AI run the queries, read the plans, and test the fixes, on your own queries. They decide what's worth fixing.

RT @sherrod_im: Everyone who works in technical roles needs this book.

RT @sherrod_im: If you work on software or are new to security and a developer, or a new developer using AI assisted code. Please get this book and follow the directions.

RT @truereddevil99: Sad news today. After 5 years of medical training, one of my mates has been struck off due to a minor discretion. He slept with one of his patients and can no longer do the job he loves. What a waste of time and money. Genuinely a great guy and a brilliant vet

a reasonable test of confidence: if someone tells you that something is safe to drop or delete, ask them to do it.

I don't tune queries by hand anymore. AI writes the DMV queries, runs them, reproduces the problem, and tests the rewrites. I decide what's worth fixing. My new video course shows you how I set that up. $250 pre-sale until it opens December 1, then $500.

RT @josh_the_coder: I don't know if any SQL Server people still hang out on this site, but I wrote a new blog post 😄

Snapshot isolation lets you opt in one query at a time. Like a gym membership where you only pay on days you actually go. This has existed for twenty years. Nobody told you. Read Committed Is Cruel by Default: #PASSDataSummit West.

PerformanceMonitor 3.11.0 is out now. Free. Darling can hand an alert to your own AI agent. Give it the keys and it can force a plan or kill a session, and every move gets logged. Also new: query tags and quiet windows.

🎥 SQL Server Performance Consulting for the AI Era 🎥

Why did the query cross the road? It was stapled to a hint somebody added in 2011. Nobody remembers why. Everybody is afraid to remove it. T-SQL That Doesn't Suck: my full day #PASSDataSummit West precon.

🎥 How SQL Server People Can Stay Relevant With AI 🎥

SQL Server has had row versioning since 2005. 2005. YouTube launched that year. You have been slapping NOLOCK on things longer than YouTube has existed. Read Committed Is Cruel by Default: my #PASSDataSummit West session.

🎥 SQL Server Performance Office Hours Episode 93 🎥

Performance Studio 1.31.0 is out. Suppress one finding by query hash in .planview.json, with a reason, and CI stops failing on it. Expensive operators also stops charging row mode operators for batch mode CPU. Thanks to Neal Mummau for the ask.