MSSQL Tiger Team

This is the official web log for the SQL Server engineering team – we focus on learning customer workloads running on SQL Server, integrating that feedback to enhance the product, and provide guidance on using SQL Server to solve customers' business challenges.

Columnstore Index: How do I find tables that can benefit from Clustered Columnstore Index

Most of us understand that clustered columnstore index can typically provide 10x data compression...

Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 06/13/2017

SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) v7.4 is now available

Overview SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) for Oracle, MySQL, SAP ASE (formerly SAP Sybase ASE),...

Author: Ajay.MSFT Date: 05/30/2017

Smart Transaction log backup, monitoring and diagnostics with SQL Server 2017

In my previous blog post, I briefly talked about smart transaction log backup, monitoring and...

Author: Parikshit Savjani Date: 05/26/2017

SQL Server 2017 Showplan enhancements

In my previous post on Easy way to get statistics histogram programmatically, I referred to...

Author: Pedro Lopes (PL) Date: 05/11/2017

Azure Database Migration Service now available for preview

Today at //BUILD, Microsoft announced a limited preview of the Azure Database Migration Service...

Author: Ajay.MSFT Date: 05/10/2017

New in SSMS: Query Performance Troubleshooting made easier!

The community already uses tools that can make it easier to read and analyze query plans (including...

Author: Pedro Lopes (PL) Date: 05/02/2017

Programmatically find SQL Server TCP ports

There are many instances in SQL Server management where one person would like to find all the TCP...

Author: Pedro Lopes (PL) Date: 04/26/2017

Community driven Enhancements in SQL Server 2017

While SQL Server 2016 runs faster, SQL Server 2017 promises to run even faster and empower customers...

Author: Parikshit Savjani Date: 04/26/2017

SQL Server Mysteries: The Case of the Not 100% RESTORE…

I recently visited a customer onsite and presented to them topics on SQL Server 2016. After the...

Author: Bob Ward (Microsoft) Date: 04/21/2017

HADR Virtual Chapter – Monitoring Always On Availability Groups

This past week SQL Server Tiger Team delivered a webinar session for the HADR PASS virtual chapter....

Author: SourabhAgarwal Date: 04/17/2017

FILESTREAM issues with SQL Server on Windows 10 creators update

If you have SQL Server installed on Windows 10 and if you have enabled the Filestream feature at the...

Author: Parikshit Savjani Date: 04/14/2017

SQL Saturday 613: Tiger Team sessions

Tomorrow there’s an exciting SQL Saturday event at the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, where the...

Author: Pedro Lopes (PL) Date: 04/14/2017

Troubleshooting High HADR_SYNC_COMMIT wait type with Always On Availability Groups

HADR_SYNC_COMMIT indicates the time between when a transaction ready to commit in the primary...

Author: SourabhAgarwal Date: 04/12/2017

DEA 2.0 Technical preview: Release Overview – Database Experimentation Assistant

Overview Database Experimentation Assistant (DEA) is a new A/B testing solution for SQL Server...

Author: Ajay.MSFT Date: 04/07/2017

CDC functionality may break after upgrading to the latest CU for SQL Server 2012, 2014 and 2016

Microsoft SQL Server Product team has identified a potential issue with the latest Servicing...

Author: SourabhAgarwal Date: 04/06/2017

Considerations when tuning your queries with columnstore indexes on clone databases

As discussed in my previous blog post, one of the primary scenario for DBCC CLONEDATABASE is to...

Author: Parikshit Savjani Date: 04/02/2017

Understanding data security in cloned databases created using DBCC CLONEDATABASE

DBCC CLONEDATABASE feature was first introduced in SQL Server with SQL Server 2014 SP2 and was later...

Author: Parikshit Savjani Date: 03/27/2017

Easy way to get statistics histogram programmatically

Statistics being the building blocks on which the Query Optimizer reasons to compile a good enough...

Author: Pedro Lopes (PL) Date: 03/23/2017

Columnstore Index – How to Estimate Compression Savings

SQL product team has made significant improvements in columnstore index functionality,...

Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 03/22/2017

Columnstore Index - List of blogs on columnstore index published by SQL Server Product Team

SQL product team has made significant improvements in functionality, supportability and performance...

Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 03/13/2017

Released: Data Migration Assistant (DMA) v3.1

Overview Data Migration Assistant (DMA) enables you to upgrade to a modern data platform by...

Author: SQL Server Engineering Team Date: 03/13/2017

SQL Server vNext Management Pack Demo

We recently released CTP2 for SQL Server vNext Management Pack that can be used to monitor SQL...

Author: Ebru1 Date: 03/03/2017

SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) v7.3 is now available

Overview SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA)  for Oracle, MySQL, SAP ASE (formerly SAP Sybase...

Author: Ajay.MSFT Date: 02/23/2017

MSSQLTIGER and February PASS Virtual Conferences

Tiger is delivering another session on today’s Performance Virtual Chapter (VC) meeting. A revamp of...

Author: Pedro Lopes (PL) Date: 02/23/2017

Getting more statistics information programmatically

As the building blocks which the Query Optimizer uses to know data distribution on tables,...

Author: Pedro Lopes (PL) Date: 02/18/2017

Tigers Down Under at Difinity, Ignite and SQL Saturday

Tigers (@ajaymsft, @s_u_n_e_e_l) are leaving the wet and cold Pacific Northwest to the warm regions...

Author: Ajay.MSFT Date: 02/08/2017

Upgrading a Replication Topology to SQL Server 2016

SQL Server Replication provides multi-faceted data movement capabilities across SQL Server releases...

Author: Amit Banerjee Date: 02/01/2017

Data Migration Assistant (DMA) v3.0 is now available

Data Migration Assistant (DMA) enables you to upgrade to a modern data platform by detecting...

Author: Ajay.MSFT Date: 01/27/2017

SQL Server Mysteries: The Case of TDE and Permanent Tempdb Encryption

I’m a huge Sherlock Holmes fan (I’ve read all the books, watch Elementary on CBS every week, and...

Author: Bob Ward (Microsoft) Date: 01/26/2017

Introducing VDC_Complete for Backup and Restore applications using SQLVDI

In addition to its built-in functionality for backup and restore, SQL Server is supported by a large...

Author: Amit Banerjee Date: 01/24/2017

Unicode strings and implicit conversions

Recently we had an interesting customer question about a seemingly strange behavior (and perhaps not...

Author: Pedro Lopes (PL) Date: 01/23/2017

Columnstore Index: SQL Server 2016 – Improved DMV performance

SQL product team has made significant improvements in columnstore index functionality,...

Author: Parikshit Savjani Date: 01/18/2017

Change Tracking Cleanup – Part 2

In the first part of my Change Tracking Cleanup post, I talked about how automatic and manual...

Author: Amit Banerjee Date: 01/17/2017

Columnstore Index Performance: SQL Server 2016 – Window Aggregates in BatchMode

SQL product team has made significant improvements in columnstore index functionality,...

Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 01/15/2017

Columnstore Index Performance: SQL Server 2016 – String Predicate Pushdown

SQL product team has made significant improvements in columnstore index functionality,...

Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 01/15/2017

Columnstore Index Performance: SQL Server 2016 – Aggregate Pushdown

SQL product team has made significant improvements in columnstore index functionality,...

Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 01/14/2017

Columnstore Index Performance: SQL Server 2016 – No Performance Cliff

SQL product team has made significant improvements in columnstore index functionality,...

Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 01/13/2017

Columnstore Index Performance: SQL Server 2016 – Multiple Aggregates

SQL product team has made significant improvements in columnstore index functionality,...

Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 01/11/2017

MSSQLTIGER and January 2017 PASS Virtual Conferences

In 2016, The Tiger team presented multiple session on the PASS Virtual Chapters on new features,...

Author: Parikshit Savjani Date: 01/02/2017

Columnstore Index Performance: BatchMode Execution

In the blog Industry leading analtyics query performance,  we had looked into how SQL Server...

Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 01/02/2017

SQL Server Performance Dashboard Reports unleashed for Enterprise Monitoring !!!

SQL Server 2012 Performance Dashboard Reports is one of most popular SQL Server monitoring solution...

Author: Parikshit Savjani Date: 01/02/2017

Columnstore Index Performance: Rowgroup Elimination

As described in Column Elimination , when querying columnstore index, only the referenced columns...

Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 01/01/2017

Columnstore Index Performance: Column Elimination

Data in Columnstore index https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg492088.aspx  is organized as...

Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 12/31/2016

A walkthrough of Loan Classification using SQL Server 2016 R Services

Joseph Sirosh, Data Group Corporate Vice President, had shown during his keynote session how...

Author: Amit Banerjee Date: 12/30/2016

Split update operation can result in higher number of replicated commands

In the recent past, we worked on an issue where a number of updates on a replicated article (part of...

Author: Amit Banerjee Date: 12/29/2016

SQL Server 2016 SP1: Know your limits

With the recent announcement of SQL Server 2016 SP1, we announced the consistent programmability...

Author: Parikshit Savjani Date: 12/09/2016

Extended per-operator level performance stats for Query Processing

Back in March we announced the availability of per-operator level performance stats for Query...

Author: Pedro Lopes (PL) Date: 12/08/2016

Clustered Columnstore Index in Azure SQL Database

Columnstore index is the preferred technology to run analytics queries in Azure SQL Databases. We...

Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 12/07/2016

Developers Choice: Query progress - anytime, anywhere

Edit (4/23/2018): due to a possible random AV running your favorite monitoring stored procedure,...

Author: Pedro Lopes (PL) Date: 12/02/2016

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