How do you check the ANSI compatibility of SQL Server queries? A client asked me this unique question, and the FIPS standard helps keep your code portable.
Does ARITHABORT Setting Negatively Impact SQL Server Performance? – Interview Question of the Week #220
Does the ARITHABORT setting hurt SQL Server performance? Yes, because with ARITHABORT OFF SQL Server can build a very different plan and queries may slow down.
How to Compile Queries and Not Execute Them? – Interview Question of the Week #219
How do you compile queries and not execute them? SET NOEXEC ON validates the syntax without running the statement, as this simple SSMS example shows.
How to Limit Output of Varchar(max), Nvarchar(max) in SELECT Statement? – Interview Question of the Week #218
How do you limit the output of Varchar(max) or Nvarchar(max) in a SELECT statement? A simple trick does it, and it works for varbinary(max), text and ntext too.
How Does QUOTED_IDENTIFIER Works in SQL Server? – Interview Question of the Week #217
How Does QUOTED_IDENTIFIER Works in SQL Server? I explain it in very simple words, using SELECT “Order By” with the setting OFF and then ON.
Do Queries Always Respect Cost Threshold of Parallelism? – Interview Question of the Week #216
Do queries always respect the Cost Threshold for Parallelism? Not always, and a quick AdventureWorks test with the execution plan shows why.
How to Know When Memory Constraints are Negatively Impacting CPU in SQL Server? – Interview Question of the Week #216
How do you know when memory constraints are hurting CPU in SQL Server? Someone asked me this loaded question before a Health Check, and here is my answer.