Building and operating a performant SQL Server-based application requires strong process and engineering discipline. Many approaches to performance engineering—techniques such as bottleneck analysis and wait-state analysis—apply only after the system has been developed, when it's more challenging and expensive to address design problems. But if you create an ongoing performance-engineering process, you can anticipate certain behaviors and characteristics, applying a variety of design techniques and monitoring and maintenance techniques that will ensure proper design as well as smooth running operations.

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