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Weirdness with our SQL Server….
We’re currently working through a really odd situation with our very own SQL Server — it’s odd because the symptoms don’t seem to line up. We’re seeing floods of disk queue growth, which leads to query slow-downs… which makes sense of course.
The weird thing is that the SQL Server isn’t working hard – not looking like it’s exhausting resources nor encountering errors, either in the SQL execution or at the hardware level. It doesn’t *look* like a manifestation of an extreme workload.
We’ve enlisted the help of some tools, that I’ll let you know about as we go forward, but wanted to start by talking about the types of things we’ve been doing. Think of this as a public autopsy of a performance issue with a SQL Server installation.
1. We’ve looked at all the standard OS-level and SQL Server-related counters. The only thing that really is standing out is the overall disk queue issue, which doesn’t tell us much, other than that we may have an issue with throughput on that subsystem. The queue does spike, stay pegged, then return to normal "regularly" – spiking about every few minutes, staying high as long as 90 seconds, returning to normal.
2. We’ve checked locks and blocks – nothing to speak of of any importance because any issues we do see here (no blocks, occasional locks), isn’t happening at the times the queues seem to spike.
3. No jobs running at the time the spikes hit.
So, what do you next? Email me, let me know. 🙂
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