Tips to Enhancing the Performance of SQL Server by More than 65%

The performance and scalability of a SQL server is affected by multiple issues. Usually, the biggest gain can be obtained by creating competent and well organized data access code for a particular technique followed by the use of proper development techniques. The performance and scalability of SQL server cannot be enhanced by changing the configuration settings of the SQL server.

So, if you consider increasing the performance level of SQL server, you must keep the following aspects in mind while taking up the task of data manipulation and database designing -

1. Select Proper Data Type: It is important to choose the proper kind of SQL data type for data storage as it helps improving the query performance. For instance: proper string storage must be done by using varchar instead of text data for the simple reason that varchar offers better performance than text. So, always consider varchar, when you need to store data up to 8000 characters.

2. Avoid the use of nvarchar and nchar: when taking up the work of database designing, you must always try to avoid the use of nvarchar and nchar data types as they both acquires double memory. Only if you need to store Unicode data such as Chinese, Hindi characters, etc, you can consider using nvarchar and nchar data type.

3. Avoid the inclusion of NULL in fields of fixed-length: You must practice avoiding the insertion of NULL values in the field of fixed–length. The reason is attributed to the fact that NULL takes up an equal space like the desired value of input for that particular field. In cases, where the requirement of NULL cannot be avoided, you can consider making use of the field of variable-length (varchar) as it acquires less space for NULL.

4. Avoid the use of * in SELECT statement: The best practice to increase the performance of SQL servers include avoiding the use of * in SELECT statement as the server changes the * to column names, prior to query execution. It is also wiser to give the name of columns of your requirement than querying all the columns by making use of * in SELECT statements.

5. Stay Away from Having Clause: If you wish to increase the performance of SQL server, you must also remember to shun the practice of Having Clause as it works like filters over selected rows. It is only preferable to use Having Clause if you further wish to filter the result of aggregation.

6. Make non-clustered and clustered indexes: Since, indexes help in fast access of data; it is always advisable to avoid the creation of clustered and non-clustered indexes. However, you must also be aware of the fact that an increased use of indexes on a table will slow down the operations of insert, update, and delete. Therefore, you must always consider maintaining a limited number of indexes on a table.

7. Maintain a small clustered index: To increase the performance of SQL server, you must also remember to maintain a small clustered index. This is advisable because, the fields that have been used in the clustered index might also find a use in the non-clustered index. Moreover, the data storage in the database is also done following the order of clustered index. Therefore, the use of clustered index on a table featuring multiple rows offers a significant rise to the size of the data.

8. Keep away from the use of cursors: In order to increase the performance of SQL server significantly, you must practice avoiding the use of cursor. This is simply because the use of cursor slows down the performance significantly. It is advisable to make use of SQL server cursor as an alternative to the general cursor.

Following the above-mentioned tips can help improve the performance of SQL server significantly. Designing effective schemas, tuning indexes, optimizing queries, etc are some of the main action areas of SQL server database development, which if handled properly can improve the SQL server performance significantly.

We provide SQL server application development services. If you would like to discuss with an expert SQL server database developer from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

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