Auto Parameterization and Implicit Conversion
When SQL Server processes a query that can be auto parameterized, the results can be a bit, shall we say, unexpected. Auto parameterization makes an implicit conversion to numeric(10,0) when there is a divisor present…
Performance of CAST vs CONVERT
This post is a follow-up to my prior post inspecting the performance of PARSE vs CAST & CONVERT, where we see that PARSE is an order of magnitude slower than CONVERT. In this post, we’ll…
Deleting a Column: Meta-data-only operation
Microsoft’s SQL Server development team is constantly working to improve performance. One important performance optimization methodology that has been eminent in SQL Server for a long time has been making as many meta-data-only operations as…
Recompress Heaps
Heaps, or tables without a clustered index, suffer from a little-known problem when configured with page compression. Page compression only takes place once a page is 100% full, i.e. when no more rows can be…
PARSE vs CAST and CONVERT
T-SQL often provides multiple ways to “skin a cat”1 as they say. In this post, we’ll take a look at two “interesting” ways to convert dates and times from character-based columns into a column using…
Compress Big Tables
Storing data in SQL Server can be expensive. Not necessarily because disk is expensive; it isn’t and is generally getting cheaper all the time. Data costs money because it consumes RAM, requires CPU resources to…
