Top 10 SQL Server Defaults to Modify

In fact, SQL Server is so easy to use that in many enterprises, individual departments have installed SQL Server without involving the DBA management team. Often the DBA team is not even aware of the departmental SQL Server installation until a problem occurs that requires expertise beyond what the department can provide. --- Hilary Cotter, SQL server Consolidation

Working with SQL Server for many years, I have rescued a number of organizations from degrading database performance back to outstanding production database.

In this session, I will discuss top 10 SQL server default settings that DBAs need to evaluate the best settings for their environment. I will elaborate how these values will impact your database operations.

  1. Recovery model  (default full)
  2. Min - Max memory  (default 0 to maximum)
  3. Initial size, auto-growth ( 2MB data, 1 MB log, auto-grow: true)
  4. Default Isolation Level (default Read Committed)
  5. FillFactor (Index) (default 0/100)
  6. Primary Key Clustered Index (PK default to Clustered Index)
  7. Uniqueidentifier
  8. Collation
  9. Data type - nvarchar(255), the "N"
  10. Allow Nulls

What you can expect to take away from this session:

  1. Learn the dos and don’ts in SQL Server
  2. Understand the default server configuration and its impacts
  3. Draw best practice principles based on real world scenarios
  4. Learn the consequences if defaults are not understood, not modified
  5. Best design to utilize the SQL Server new features