Author: Nisarg Upadhyay

Nisarg is a SQL Server Database Administrator and Microsoft certified professional who has more than 5 years of experience with SQL Server administration and 2 years with Oracle 10g database administration. He has expertise in database design, performance tuning, backup and recovery, HA and DR setup, database migrations and upgrades. He has completed the Bachelors in Information Technology from Ganpat University.

How to Update SQL Server Statistics for Big Tables

Nisarg Upadhyay

In my previous article, I have briefly covered database statistics, its importance, and why statistics should be updated. Moreover, I have demonstrated a step by step process to create a SQL Server maintenance plan to update statistics. In this article, the following issues will be explained: 1. How to update statistics using T-SQL Command. 2. How to identify the frequently updated tables using T-SQL and also how to update the statistics of tables with frequently inserted/ updated / deleted data . Read More

Calculate the median by using Transact SQL

Nisarg Upadhyay

The statistical median is the value which separates a dataset into halves – one comprises greater values, and the other comprises lesser ones. For a specified dataset, it can be considered as the “middle” value. For example, in the dataset {1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}, the median is 5, which is fourth largest, and fourth smallest number in the dataset.

To calculate the median of any dataset, we first need to arrange all values from the dataset in a specific order. After arranging the data, we must determine the middle value of the specified dataset. If the dataset contains an odd number of values, than the middle value of the entire dataset will be considered as a median. Read More

Update SQL Server statistics using a database maintenance plan

Nisarg Upadhyay

Database backups, integrity checks, and performance optimizations are core regular tasks of DBAs. The client data is very important for a DBA to manage the database backup and make sure the integrity of the backups. So if something goes wrong with a production database, it can be recovered with minimum downtime. The database integrity checks are also important because, in the case of database corruption, it can be corrected with minimum downtime and data loss. Managing database performance is also important. Managing database performance is a combination of multiple tasks. Read More

Auto Create Statistics and Auto Update Statistics

Nisarg Upadhyay

Statistics comprises lightweight objects that are used by SQL Server Query optimizer to determine the optimal way to retrieve data from the table. SQL Server optimizer uses the histogram of column statistics to choose the optimal query execution plan. If a query uses a predicate which already has statistics, the query optimizer can get all the required information from the statistics to determine the optimal way to execute the query. SQL Server creates statistics in two ways:

  1. When a new index is created on a column.
  2. If the AUTO_CREATE_STATISTICS option is enabled.

In this article, Auto Create Statistics and Auto Update Statistics options are analyzed. They are database specific and can be configured using SQL Server management studio and T-SQL Query. Read More

Several Ways to Insert Split Delimited Strings in a Column

Nisarg Upadhyay

In this article, I will demonstrate several ways to split the delimited string and insert it in into a column of a table in SQL Server. You can do it using the following methods:

  1. Convert delimited string into XML, use XQuery to split the string, and save it into the table.
  2. Create a user-defined table-valued function to split the string and insert it into the table.
  3. Split the string using STRING_SPLIT function and insert the output into a table. Read More

T-SQL SET Operators Part 2: INTERSECT and EXCEPT

Nisarg Upadhyay

In my previous article, I explained the basics of set operators, their types, and prerequisites for their use. I also talked about UNION and UNION ALL operators, their usage and differences.

In this article, we’re going to learn the following:

  1. EXCEPT and INTERSECT operators.
  2. Difference between INTERSECT and INNER JOIN.
  3. The detailed explanation of INTERSECT and EXCEPT with an example.

EXCEPT and INTERSECT operators were introduced in SQL Server 2005. Both are set operators used to combine the result sets generated by two queries and retrieve the desired output. Read More

Advanced SQL: Variations and Different Use cases of T-SQL Insert Statement

Nisarg Upadhyay

In my previous article, I demonstrated:

  1. Insert the output of the table-valued function in the SQL table.
  2. Insert the output of the table-valued function that is created on the remote database server.

In this article, I am going to demonstrate:

  1. Copy data between two tables, created in a different schema.
  2. Copy data between two tables, created in different databases on the same server.
  3. Copy data between two tables created, in different databases resides the different server (Cross server query)

Read More

T-SQL SET Operators Part 1: UNION and UNION ALL

Nisarg Upadhyay

In SQL Server, we can combine the same type of data from multiple tables using SET operators. After combining multiple SQL statements, it returns one result set. Following is the list of T-SQL SET operators:

  1. UNION
  2. UNION ALL
  3. INTERSECT
  4. EXCEPT

To use SET operators, we must follow a number of rules:

  1. The result set of both queries must have the same number of columns.
  2. The data type of columns retrieved by the top and bottom queries must be the same.
  3. If we want to sort the final result set, the ORDER BY clause must be at the end of the query.
  4. The positional ordering of the columns returned by the top and bottom queries must be same. Read More

Advanced SQL: CROSS APPLY and OUTER APPLY

Nisarg Upadhyay

In this article, we’ll look into the “APPLY” operator and its variations – CROSS APPLY and OUTER APPLY along with examples of how they can be used.

In particular, we will learn:

  • the difference between CROSS APPLY and the JOIN clause
  • how to join the output of SQL queries with table-evaluated functions
  • how to identify performance issues by querying dynamic management views and dynamic management functions.

Read More