Age Open Transactions with sys.dm_tran_active_transactions
A transaction that never commits keeps every log record written after it pinned in place, no matter how much work piles up behind it. sys.dm_tran_active_transactions lists every transaction currently open on the instance, but on its own it only shows a transaction ID and a start time — pairing it with …
Read MoreRank Top Memory Consumers with sys.dm_os_memory_clerks
Jul 20, 2026 / · 8 min read · sql server sys.dm_os_memory_clerks memory clerks memory pressure plan cache xtp query store dmv performance monitoring scripts ·Buffer pool counters explain data cache pressure but go silent the moment memory trouble comes from somewhere else. sys.dm_os_memory_clerks is the DMV that covers everything the buffer pool doesn't — plan cache, In-Memory OLTP, Query Store, query memory grants, Extended Events sessions — by reporting pages_kb per …
Read MoreBreak Down Buffer Pool Memory by Database
Jul 12, 2026 / · 8 min read · sql server sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors buffer pool data cache memory database memory dmv performance monitoring scripts ·sys.dm_os_buffer_descriptors is the DMV that maps SQL Server's data cache down to the individual page level — one row per 8 KB page currently held in the buffer pool, tagged with the database_id and file_id it belongs to. Rolling those rows up with a simple GROUP BY database_id turns millions of individual page entries …
Read MoreMeasure Disk I/O Performance per Database File
Jul 3, 2026 / · 8 min read · sql server sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats sys.master_files disk io io stall disk latency performance database files dmv monitoring scripts ·I/O latency is where disk bottlenecks hide. SQL Server accumulates every millisecond of file-level read and write wait in sys.dm_io_virtual_file_stats — one row per database file, reset at each service restart. Joining that DMV to sys.master_files replaces raw file IDs with physical paths and file types, and dividing …
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