Today we would like to introduce you to the first Online Hands-on Learning available for SQL Server.

Learn SQL Server Internals and practice the hands-on examples shown in the YouTube videos right away - LIVE - while watching! No bulky VMs to download, SQLTest tool simulates the hands-on labs for you! No registration necessary.

Here are some of the topics we have available at the moment:

• Temporary table or table variable? A new twist: After addressing Tempdb Allocation Contention, you will most probably encounter Tempdb Metadata Contention when you are using temporary tables (not when you are using table variables due to Temp Table Caching). Go ahead and experience the contention!

• Why does SQL Server choose Scan instead of Seek? Also check out the cost based optimizer and see for yourself: It sometimes chooses seek over scan even though the seek is a bit more expensive.

• Did you know, there can be Data Access Latency with AlwaysOn Availability Groups, even with Synchronous-Commit Mode Replica Readable Secondary? See for yourself -

• How about Resource Governor, are you aware that Resource Governor CPU Throttling does not work for mixed workload until SQL Server 2016? Before you promise your manager anything, practice some scenarios!

• Did you know SQL Server Optimizer doesn't cost CPU overhead related to expanding compressed data? Learn why you should never compress certain tables by checking out the hands-on video Data Compression - Pros and Cons.

• Don't count on the wait time, SQL Server will reset the ASYNC_NETWORK_IO wait time after a threshold, don't believe any canned demos, check it out for yourself!

• Not impressed by SQL Server Management Studio Extended Events UI and not an XQuery fan? We have you covered, check out our Extended Events Script Generator and practice the Extended Events Hands-on Labs on attention (Command Timeout / Application Timeout), query_post_execution_showplan and locks_lock_waits.

• Conduct In-Memory OLTP Memory Optimized Table Variables Vs Disk Based Table Variable performance showdown with just a few clicks.

• Check out when to use Filtered Statistics and when not to set configuration parameter optimize for ad hoc workloads!

• Concurrent updates and selects from adjacent rows on the same page from many sessions can lead to PAGELATCH_EX and PAGELATCH_SH contention, practice the solution.

All tutorials can be found on sqlvideo.com (YouTube embedded), hands-on example scripts included.

Enjoy the experience and please take a few minutes to give us feedback so we can improve our tutorials!

Are there any specific topics you would like us to cover among our next clips? Don't forget to mention them as well.

If you want to take the learning a step further, join one of our in-person hands-on workshops! Schedule

Looking forward,

Ramesh and Carmen from SQLWorkshops.com

SQL Server Hands-on Learning

"I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand." (Confucius)