Automatic Index Tuning by default on Azure sql server

Automated Index Tuning by default on Azure will start on January 15^th 2018.

It’s clear from reading the announcement  – it is a very well tested technology based on large amounts of field testing, and will continue to improve with time.

This announcement inevitably will raise questions about the future of the DBA     and the The future of the DBA profession (SQL Server DBA)  , but like most automation it will open up other opportunities for DBAs to add value to the database management process.

Automation,auto install, patching , template builds. Bring it on!  The less of these tasks you're manually completing , the better you are at your job. How can I utilise the Cloud , particuarly template builds to make my life easier? Spending more time on value - added tasks is the way to progress.    But these types of automated tasks are of a different risk factor to automated indexing.

A few things interest me about this announcement about Automates Index Tuning.

1. Automted testing - If the indexing is automated will there be automated test blocks to test the indexing suggestions?  With different workloads across environments how will the indexes manage?
2. How will the automated indexing deal with bad code and poor database design ? On Database Tuning Advisor (DTA) there used to be some fairly horrendous covering indexes suggested to deal with mismatched queries on database design.

Read the full article here

Let me know your thoughts on this topic.

Related articles

Find Table Scans in Query Plan Cache

Memory grants and execution plans