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DBA 101 - Troubleshooting a slow server

User groups, special classes, informal meetings, etc and this topic comes up more often than not. What is really surprising is the tentative answers that are given. Simply stated people want to know how to troubleshoot a problem. Isn't there a basic set of steps, bullet points, something to help me troubleshoot any kind of problem on my server? Instead of beating around the bush and saying "it depends on the problem" I will attempt to tackle this head on.

New DBA's or accidental DBA's may not have all the knowledge that is needed to identify and fix a problem. However, the knowledge is simple enough to explain and fumble through your first few times.

What you need to know:
  • Activity Monitor
  • DMV's (Dynamic Management Views)
  • Query Execution Plan
  • T-Sql knowledge
  • Performance Monitor (a.k.a. PerfMon)
  • Windows event viewer

If you don't know these things not to worry. We will go over them, what they do, and how you should use them. Look for more on this soon!

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