As I was talking with a DBA, we were talking about the different pieces of SQL Server – from performance to disaster recovery management and beyond.
I was surprised when they indicated that performance and tuning were not something they allocated a lot of time to. The payoff just wasn’t there. I figured they were simply brilliant and had tuned their systems so completely that they had it made. I wanted to know more.
The reality is that they’re doing a mid-range volume (100’s of gigabytes of db storage) for storage and transactions that are respectable, but not insane. They’ve found that the tuning required is small because the base features of SQL Server (indexes and proper initial setup parameters, that type of thing) did such a great job keeping things performing well and up and going.
Now, before you think this is an ad for how wonderful SQL Server is, bear with me. I’ve always found that performance and tuning taken together is one of those things that you revisit both on a calendar-planned basis, and as applications mature and require attention. I may not be constantly poking at SQL Server to tune things on more mature applications, but still, the requirement is there to stay on top of things and watch for things that need attention.
This DBA said that simply wasn’t necessary and that they would rather spend the time on the architecture and new development rather than chasing down small incremental performance gains.
What do you see with your own systems? Are they all tuned up and never require additional thought and tweaking?
Shoot me an email (or comment here) and let me know – I’d really like to hear what you’re seeing and what your own approach is to this.