User_Updates value from sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats can be misleading

I was doing some investigating the other day and trying to find which tables in our environment were the most written to. This was because my buddies in the IT department had gotten a bunch of new storage that was optimized for a write-intensive workload. To identify which tables had the most writes, I used […]

The Case Of The Multi-Column Auto-Created Statistic

I’ve been spending some time lately working with statistics, specifically auto-created statistics. When auto-create statistics is enabled, SQL Server will create column statistics when it needs them. No surprises there. Conventional wisdom also states that SQL Server never creates multi-column statistics, only single column statistics. In fact, this MSDN page says this of the auto […]

Backup Verification, Statistical Sampling, And You

I’m always eager to expand my knowledge about SQL Server and I have a list of about 10 SQL-related blogs that I check on a daily basis. I’ve picked up lots of good info from them and occasionally, I’ll come across something that sticks in my head because I think it’s just all kinds of […]