In the Star Wars universe, the nerf was an adaptable, hairy, slow, grumpy animal that was important for its meat. In SQL Server, the Statistic is a flexible, hairy, (sometimes) slow, grumpy blob that is important in query compilation. The similarities don’t end there, though. Both nerfs and statistics can get unwieldy if not managed properly.
I have the privilege of speaking at SQL Saturday #331 in Denver this upcoming weekend (Saturday, September 20, 2014) about managing statistics in SQL Server. This topic was a major focus in our largest production environments and has yielded much of what I will be presenting in this session.
Here is a link to my files and below is an outline of what will be covered in this session:
back-of-the napkin statistics overview
the cost of bad statistics
underestimates
overestimates
managing statistics
naming
monitoring modifications
trace flag 2371
skew analysis
incremental statistics
observing and validating changes
There are going to be a lot of excellent speakers at this event so you’re not going to be disappointed, regardless of the session(s) you choose. I look forward to seeing you there. I’ll be the half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf-herder.