I/O distribution analysis
- I/O details for databases and files are obtained, and for
SQL Server 2008, we drill down and get I/O distribution at
the object level. We check I/O distribution using a real
workload and find likely candidates for physical disk
relocation or redistribution.
Hardware review - We
review your complete external hardware to identify potential
bottlenecks and areas of contention. This step examines disk
I/O latency (seeking disk bottlenecks) and a cursory review
of Network, RAM and CPU utilization. For RAM, if
pages/sec consistently high, this indicates paging and
swapping activity
Windows review - We verify your release and patch
levels for Windows. We also review SQL Server integrity
checking. We also check SQL auditing setting.
Log Review - We also examine all logs (Windows Event
Logs, SQL Server logs and SQL Agent logs) for alerts and
important messages.
Transaction log inspection - We review the
transaction log for optimal size and bottlenecks.
TEMP space review - We
review tempdb to ensure optimal sizing (disk sorts).
Table pinning review -
BC identifies heavily accessed objects that can be improved
by placing them in their own filegroups, assuming separate
I/O controllers exist for distinct hard drives, the best
place for objects to reside will always be memory.
Table fragmentation check - We check and repair table fragmentation
which is a
natural result of table usage that can cause performance
degradation.
Server Configuration Options check - BC verifies that
all SQL Server configuration parameters are optimized for
the system workload.
Review Scheduled tasks - Review users and document
all auto-start and SQL services options
