The massive and exponential growth of database sizes requires new strategies for maintaining SQL Server performance. Therefore as data sets grow performance is maintained and also improved , but not to deteriorate.
Benchmarking query response times and other key indicators serves as a building block to database performance. The strategy is heavily defined by how detailed a DBA needs to deal with performance bottlenecks.
Maintaining benchmark details such as wait stats, IO,memory and CPU yield fantastic benefits. Once you establish the data gathering and methods to access the data , using this information as part of a triage can save hours of guesswork.
A performance maintenance strategy should include best practises for setting up \ deploying servers, capacity planning and troubleshooting.
These posts are a start on the sorts of issues to consider in developing a strattegy
TPC-H generate test data , test queries and sql database benchmark ...
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What is acceptable database server performance testing
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Read More on troubleshooting SQL Server memory pressure
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Author: Jack Vamvas ( http://www.sqlserver-dba.com )