For this session, I’m relying on a mixture of previous blog posts and new material/demos that I’ll have to write. I’ve written three full presentations, and I usually follow the same pattern.
My method for developing a presentation
First, I write down all my ideas. Then I sort through them to tell a coherent story, and find what demos I need to write. Finally, I polish and polish, to get to a point where I’m happy with the presentation. This is not the final copy.
The final copy is created after I practice the presentation and demos until they’re second-nature. That is the most time-consuming part by far, but it gives me confidence when presenting.
My current list of ideas
The session title is Performance Tuning with SQL Server Memory Grants. This has a big influence on what ideas I want to show.
Here’s the list, in no particular order:
- Include the information on the max size of a memory grant from this blog post
- Demonstrate problems with big memory grants, specifically RESOURCE_SEMAPHORE waits
- What does a memory grant do
- Why is a memory grant requested
- How do data types and sizes affect the memory grant
- Consider including information on the “excessive memory grant” warning in execution plans
- PerfMon counter: Memory Grants Pending
- Resource governor
- Currently running queries
- Small/large semaphores
- Memory grant hints
- What operators in execution plans use memory grants
- Minimum size of a memory grant
Next step
The next step is to work on connecting the ideas to form a story through the presentation. It’s likely that I’ll have to trim that list down, and there’s probably ideas I’ve forgotten.
Please feel free to give feedback as I work on this presentation. Stay tuned!