SQL Performance Tuning for Developers: 3 Practical Tips

When you are working with large scale data, then even the most minor change made by you in the database may have a dramatic impact on the performance. The impact could be both positive and negative. In such situations, SQL performance tuning can be an incredibly challenging task.

Typically, a Database Administrator or DBA handles most of the SQL performance tunings in mid-sized and large companies. However, most of the companies with DBAs strive hard to work in sync with developers. The problem-solving modes of both the teams are different which often leads to conflict among the co-workers.

As a result, companies have to depart them and let them work separately with their own techniques. However, for better performance tuning, both teams need to work together for an effective result. In this blog, we are going to learn three important tips that will help in tuning SQL performance tuning.

Top Three Experimented Techniques for SQL Performance Tuning

 Without much ado, let us look at these three important tips to tuning:

Tip 1: Generation of an Actual Execution Plan

An SQL Server Management tool is crucial for generating graphical execution plans as well as for creating indexes. One can generate the actual execution plan only after the queries run. But the question arises- how will you generate it?

You need to simply click on ‘Include Actual Execution Plan’ or CTRL + M before running your query. Later on, a new tab will appear namely ‘Execution Plan’ where you will find a missing index. Ultimately, you have to right-click and select the ‘Missing Index Details’ in the execution plan and you’re all done.

Tip 2: Indexing

Through indexing, you can effectively tune your SQL performance. However, most of the developers often neglect it during the development process. An index is a data structure that provides efficient access of ordered records and random rapid lookups to upgrade the speed of data retrieval operations.

It implies that once an index has been created, you can sort or select your rows even faster. Furthermore, indexes also define the unique index or primary key to ascertain no other columns hold the same value.

Tip 3: Discover Slow Queries with SQL DMVs

DMV (Dynamic Management Views) are built into SQL Server and is one of the most significant features of SQL Server. They are in dozens and render a wide range of information pertaining to various topics. Several DVMs offer data about execution plans, recent queries, query stats, and more. These data can be combined together to obtain some astonishing insights.

Final Thoughts

So, for the next time, you need to improve the SQL performance tuning, you will have these three essential techniques at your fingertip. However, there are several other tips as well that can upgrade to the performance of your SQL server.

But before opting for any SQL tuning products, you must ensure the type of SQL performance functionality the product has built-in. There are several SQL tuning products available in the market but they aren’t useful to you until you have an in-depth knowledge of the same.

Tosska provides a one-button-solution tool to automatically tune the SQL statements without the need for users’ intervention. It offers various other tools to cope up with different issues related to SQL performance tuning. Therefore, you must look once into its products.