With the businesses gearing up to online platforms such as websites and apps rather than being operational from brick and mortar offices, there has been a rising requirement for software infrastructures such as Databases. Database marks an essential part of all the online products and services, and that is why having a high performing database helps in boosting up the overall operations.
For a database to work efficiently, server health is one of the most important factors. Due to this reasons, diligent Database Administrators spare most of their times to ensure a good server health.
SQL Server is one of the most used database servers which have been catering to a large variety of users with its different versions. Thus, ways to improve the overall database performance in SQL server has been in question since a long time.
If you too want to improve your database performance in SQL server, here are the ways in which you could achieve that:
1. Choose the right data type
It is important that you choose the right data type to improve your SQL server performance. By choosing the right data type you would be able to save a lot of memory space which would have otherwise used to store the same data. For example, You could use varchar instead of text datatype for a better performance, while at the same time if the text is larger then you should prefer text datatype over varchar. Avoid nchar and nvarchar as they use double memory, instead use char and varchar to save on the database memory.
2. Locate problem queries
A major reason behind a poor database performance in SQL server is the existing problem queries. These queries cause slowdowns impacting the whole database operations. One of the most effective ways to enhance database performance in SQL server is to locate the areas having a problem, and find out which queries are causing problems and resolve them. For example, use SELECT (field name) instead of SELECT * for database optimization.
3. Monitor Index Usage regularly
Ensure smoother database operations by monitoring index usage of the database server regularly without fail. This can be easily performed by running DMVs (Dynamic Management Views) where you tend to get plenty of information with regards to the index usage of the database. To get the index usage information you can query the below DMV
Sys.dm_db_index_operational_stats()
4. Locate input output (i/o) bottlenecks
Another vital area where the database performance depends a lot is the i/o. A fairly good i/o ensures seamless operations of the database, resulting in an overall high performance of SQL server database. To make this happen, trace input/output bottlenecks and resolve them with diligence for a seamless database functionality.
5. Separately have Data and Log files
If you still have common files for Data and Log, then you must consider them separating on to different physical drives. Separating would improve SQL server database performance by keeping the random access data files separate from sequential log files. Due to the opposite nature of these two types of files, keeping them separate is in favour of better SQL server health, especially in case of higher volumes of data.
The way ahead
By using the above ways you can ensure a higher database performance of your SQL server. As the database plays a vital role in business operations, keeping it performing seamlessly is very important and beneficial.
Thus, apart from following the above practices, you can always be a step ahead by taking consultation of diligent and expert DBAs at optimizDBA which can help you with database performance tuning without accessing your data keeping it highly secure.
To know more about how expert DBAs at optimizDBA could be helpful in making your database more efficient, you can contact us today.