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Author: Kevin Kline

Kevin Kline (@kekline) is a renowned database expert and software industry veteran. A long-time Microsoft SQL Server MVP and noted leader in the IT industry, Kevin is a founder and former president of PASS and the author of popular IT books like SQL in a Nutshell. Kevin is a top-rated speaker at industry trade shows worldwide. He also blogs at http://KevinEKline.com and blogs.sentryone.com.
The High-Performance DBA: Total Recall, Part 2: SQL Server Memory, Plan Cache, and Query Patterns

Memory problems rarely announce themselves clearly. Instead, they show up as long-running queries, random slowdowns, heavy I/O, and vague “SQL Server is slow” style tickets with very little detail. That’s exactly why SQL Server memory management deserves closer attention. It’s rarely the headline issue. More often, it’s the problem behind the problems. Most DBAs don’t […]

  ◆  May 28, 2026
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The High-Performance DBA: Total Recall, Part 1: SQL Server Memory Basics and Best Practices

Memory problems rarely announce themselves clearly. Instead, they show up as long-running queries, random slowdowns, heavy I/O, and vague “SQL Server is slow” style tickets with very little detail. That’s exactly why SQL Server memory management deserves closer attention. It’s rarely the headline issue. More often, it’s the problem behind the problems. Most DBAs don’t […]

  ◆  May 28, 2026
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Database smarter with deeper insights for Microsoft SQL
Database Storage Optimization for the High-Performance DBA

After a while, if you lead database teams, the pattern becomes familiar. Your DBAs spend too much time firefighting. Complexity keeps rising. The time available for real improvement keeps shrinking. The pressure shows up in the data. The 2025 State of Database Report puts numbers behind that reality. DBAs spend an average of 27 hours a week […]

  ◆  May 28, 2026
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The High-Performance DBA: Breaking the Burnout Cycle in Modern Database Teams

In today’s data-driven environments, the role of the database administrator (DBA) has never been more critical or more demanding. Modern database administration now spans on-premises data centers, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and AWS-hosted databases, as well as third-party managed services. As organizations scale across cloud and hybrid architectures, DBAs are expected to maintain database performance, […]

  ◆  May 28, 2026
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SQLPerformance 2.0: The Next Chapter

SQLPerformance is back. For years, it’s been a trusted home for deeply technical, real-world guidance for SQL Server professionals, and that mission matters more than ever in today’s more complex, fast-moving database environments.  If you’ve spent any time tuning SQL Server and Azure SQL, there’s a good chance SQLPerformance has crossed your path. For years, […]

  ◆  May 28, 2026
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Quick Tip – Speed Up a Slow Restore from the Transaction Log

Here's a quick tip for you:

During some restore operations in SQL Server, the transaction log redo step might be taking an unusually long time. Depending somewhat on the version and edition of SQL Server you've installed, you may be able to increase performance by tinkering with the readahead performance for the redo operations. To do this, you should use the MAXTRANSFERSIZE parameter of the RESTORE statement. For example, if you set MAXTRANSFERSIZE = 1048576, it'll use 1MB buffers.

  ◆  November 14, 2012
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The Zombie PerfMon Counters That Never Die!

One of the things that's simultaneously great and horrible about the Internet is that, once something gets posted out in the ether, it basically never goes away. (Some day, politicians will realize this. We can easily fact check their consistency.) Because of longevity of content posted to the Internet, a lot of performance tuning topics become "zombies." We shoot 'em dead, but they keep coming back!

  ◆  October 17, 2012
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