SQL Server Performance Tuning
Slow is a symptom. We find the cause.
SQL Server performance tuning identifies the actual bottleneck — queries, execution plans, indexing, blocking, memory, I/O, tempdb, configuration, or application behavior — then fixes what matters and verifies the result against the real workload.
Trusted by 100+ Teams Since 2011
The hard part isn’t knowing it’s slow. It’s knowing why.
Slow queries. High CPU. Blocking. Bad execution plans. Timeouts. An application that used to run fine and suddenly doesn’t.
SQL Server performance problems can have a lot of causes. The expensive part is guessing at the wrong one.
We help teams find the actual bottleneck, fix what matters, and understand what happened so you aren’t just waiting for the problem to come back.
Imagine knowing –with confidence – that SQL Server is no longer the bottleneck
Not “it seems faster.” Not “we added an index and CPU dropped.” Actual evidence that you found the bottleneck, fixed what mattered, and know what to watch next.
How It Works
Four steps. Evidence first. Faster SQL Server.
We start with what SQL Server is actually doing, follow the evidence, make the right changes, and verify the result.
Short discovery call
We start with the symptoms, business impact, when the problem happens, what changed, and what your team has already tried.
Collect the evidence
We look at the data that matters for your problem – Query Store, execution plans, waits, blocking, deadlocks, indexing, statistics, resource utilization, configuration, SQL Sentry collection when appropriate and workload behavior.
Follow the bottleneck
A senior SQL Server performance expert works through the evidence and follows the problem wherever it leads. Sometimes it’s the query. Sometimes it isn’t.
Fix it. Prove it. Explain it.
We make or recommend the right changes, validate the improvement against the real workload, and explain what happened so you aren’t left with a mystery that happens to be faster today. You walk away with the performance improved and the knowledge on your team.
What We TUNE
SQL Server performance problems rarely live in just one place.
We look across the workload, the engine, the server, and the application to find the actual bottleneck.
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Dimension
What We Examine
Queries & Execution Plans
Slow queries, regressions, Query Store history, parameter sensitivity, cardinality estimates, join strategies, and expensive operators.
Indexing
Missing or ineffective indexes, excessive indexing, statistics quality, fragmentation where it matters, and whether indexing matches the workload.
Blocking, Deadlocks & Concurrency
Blocking chains, deadlocks, transaction scope, isolation levels, locking behavior, and workloads that degrade as concurrency increases.
CPU, Memory, I/O & tempdb
CPU pressure, memory grants, storage latency, waits, tempdb contention, and whether infrastructure is the cause or just showing the symptom.
SQL Server Configuration
Instance and database settings, MAXDOP, cost threshold, memory configuration, compatibility levels, and settings affecting workload performance.
Application & Database Design
Query patterns, schema and data access choices, workload design, reporting patterns, and application behavior that creates unnecessary database load.
REAL RESULTS
Sometimes the fix is a query. Sometimes it isn’t
A few real examples of what happens when you follow the evidence instead of guessing at the fix.
Education Software as a Service Client
Thursday morning they called us. Friday morning was their smoothest in months.
An education software company came to us on a Thursday morning after months of performance problems during a critical daily usage period.
We found the queries driving the bottleneck, worked through the execution plans and indexing, and were implementing fixes that same Thursday night – we actually signed the contract while we were already working the problem.
The next morning was their smoothest Friday in months. The bottleneck queries were no longer dominating the workload, performance was back, and their school-district customers weren’t dealing with the same slowdowns.
Reporting & Production Workloads
The report stayed. The bottleneck didn’t.
One client had a reporting query consuming enough resources to affect everything else running on the SQL Server. Telling the business to stop running this critical report (that “always worked before” they hit the new data size…) wasn’t much of a solution.
First, we tuned the query, got it using the right indexes, removed query anti-patterns, and taught the team what was making it so expensive.
Then we helped separate the deeper reporting workload from production.
They kept the reporting capability the business needed without allowing one workload to consume the host.
Performance + Cost
Faster SQL Server. Fewer cores. Lower cost.
“Add more CPU” is an expensive SQL Server tuning strategy – especially when you’re paying for cloud compute and SQL Server licensing.
We’ve helped clients rewrite inefficient queries, improve indexing and configuration, and eliminate unnecessary workload to the point that they could reduce vCPUs or cores while improving performance.
That can lower infrastructure costs and SQL Server licensing costs at the same time.
Better performance doesn’t always require a bigger server. Sometimes the faster system is the smaller one.
Get PERFORMANCE HELP
Know what hurts? Let’s work on it.
For focused performance tuning, troubleshooting, remediation, and project work, we sell consulting hours in simple buckets.
20 HOURS
40 HOURS
Need Ongoing DBA Support?
Performance tuning can solve the immediate problem. If you need ongoing monitoring, maintenance, troubleshooting, and a DBA team, you can move to our DBA as a Service offering at any time.
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Testimonials
Trusted When SQL Server Performance Matters
From slow queries and blocking to larger performance and architecture problems, clients bring us the SQL Server issues their teams can’t easily solve.
Srey Timmer
Mathnasium
Valuable insights and reduced complexity
What I like best about working with Straight Path is their responsiveness, deep technical expertise, and how easy they are to collaborate with. They consistently provide valuable insights and make complex issues easier to manage.
Shawn Ansted
Senior Software Engineer,
S&S Activewear
A wonderful experience
The Straight Path team has excellent communication skills and proactively reaches out when there are issues. They always inform us exactly what is going on and what to expect. It is a wonderful experience in 2025, where I don’t think enough companies are as transparent as Straight Path.
Dean Tammam
Red Key Solutions
I don’t know what I’d do without them
Database management has never been this easy. The Straight Path team is full of SQL Server database gurus who can help you speed it up, sort it out or set it up right. Client satisfaction has increased because problems are solved and workflows are positively impacted. As a result, I am sleeping like a baby knowing our databases are being watched and managed diligently by our SQL Server consulting team.
David Evans
President and CEO,
DecisionLogic
Stepped up in emergency situations
StraightPath didn’t initially sell themselves to us as an immediate response team, and they didn’t pretend to be our “own” brain-power but an augmentation to our team. But they stepped up and became both during at least three different emergency situations over the last 12-18 months.
We reached out to Mike, and two things shocked me. First, within minutes, he was mobilizing the right team at his end to jump on a screen-sharing session to try and fix things. Then he brought in Tara (our dedicated Senior DBA from Straight Path today). Tara and Mike took control, analyzed and actually plotted a course of recovery that minimized our downtime (by a lot) and protected us from making stupid mistakes we were poised to make.
I can’t tell you how reassuring they were and we continue to use Straight Path more and more within our business and I highly recommend their remote DBA Services, without reservation.
Frequently Asked Questions
We troubleshoot slow queries, execution plans, indexing, blocking and deadlocks, parameter sensitivity, CPU and memory pressure, I/O, tempdb, SQL Server configuration, Query Store, and performance problems involving application or database design.
We don’t assume the app (or the infrastructure) is the problem. We follow the evidence until we find the actual bottleneck.
No. Query tuning is part of what we do, but many SQL Server performance problems aren’t caused by one bad query.
The cause may be indexing, blocking, memory pressure, storage latency, configuration, concurrency, application behavior, architecture, or several things interacting at once. We look at the workload as a whole.
Yes. Sudden performance changes are a common reason clients call us.
We look at what changed, Query Store history, execution plans, waits, blocking, resource utilization, configuration, workload changes, and other evidence to determine what happened and what should be fixed.
Usually not. Most of the diagnostic work can be performed while SQL Server remains online.
Some fixes may require a maintenance window or carry production risk. If they do, we explain that before making the change and work with your team on the safest approach.
Usually, yes, although exactly what we need depends on the problem.
We’ll determine the appropriate access during discovery and work within your security requirements. We only ask for the access necessary to investigate and perform the agreed work.
Yes. We work with SQL Server on-premises, SQL Server running in Azure or AWS, Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure SQL Database, and hybrid environments.
The platform may change, but the same principle applies: collect evidence, find the bottleneck, and fix the right thing.
Performance tuning and troubleshooting can be purchased in consulting-hour buckets.
20 hours: $7,000
40 hours: $12,000
Hours are billed in 15-minute increments and are available for one year or until exhausted. You can purchase additional hours if you need them.
No. Performance tuning can be a completely standalone consulting engagement.
If you need us to solve a specific problem, we can do that and stop there. If the work shows that what you really need is ongoing monitoring, maintenance, and DBA coverage, we can also talk about our DBA as a Service offering.
Our performance work is done by Straight Path’s full-time SQL Server team. We’re not a one-person consultancy with a network of people we call when things get difficult, and we don’t send the work to an offshore support desk.
Our team has more than 200 years of combined SQL Server experience and includes some people with pretty serious performance chops. Andrew Kelly was a Microsoft SQL Server MVP for 20 years and taught performance to Microsoft Certified Master candidates. Tara Kizer was a 10-year MVP and has spent decades troubleshooting difficult production performance problems. Mike Walsh and Jack Corbett are also former SQL Server MVPs with deep performance, architecture, DBA, and database-development experience.
We also have Buck Woody, whose career includes decades across SQL Server, Microsoft, data architecture, and large data platforms, and Richie Rump on the development side when a performance problem crosses the line between SQL Server and application code.
The important part isn’t the collection of credentials. It’s that they’re part of the same Straight Path team. Your consultant can pull in another experienced person when the problem needs a second set of eyes or a different specialty.