Beginners Guide to Performance

Analysis
1. look at the execution plan by using SET SHOWPLAN ON before execting the procedure, ensure it is using optimal indexes
2. also measure the timings of the procedure SELECT getdate() before and after the EXEC
3. don't get caught in the trap that cache has on the 2nd and subsequent executions

Fixiing
well this is a lot harder, it is usually the wrong indexes are being used by the optimiser, or the ideal indexes dont exist. You can force indexes using "index hints"
    eg.     SELECT * FROM yourtable (INDEX yourindex) WHERE ...
but many developers/managers try to avoid index hints. evaluate the entire logic of the procedure, consider removing cursors if you are not executing a child procedure within the loop, try and avoid updating your #temp tables, that is quite slow

we could go on for every on this subject, but we wont

good luck

> Whats a good and bad response time for sybase by the way

to do what ?
on how many rows ?
using ASA or ASE ?
what version ?
on what hardware, operating system, disk and memory config ?
etc

that is a pretty open question

lots of information on working with (and around :) the optimiser at
http://my.sybase.com/detail?id=2602

Peewee
you need to provide some feedback here

chaps,
apologies for the lack of repsonse here, i seemed to have forgotten about this one for some reason.


Its seems that my problem could be out of date statistics, here's my final question:

how do i check when the last time my statistics for a given table ie test_table where run?

thanks in advance peewee