Arthur Zschintzsch

For 20 years I have worked with SQL Server from versions 6.5 through 13 (2016). I have worked as a production DBA with a primary responsibility focused on security, performance, and especially stability. Working with best practices I’d first lFor 20 years I have worked with SQL Server from versions 6.5 through 13 (2016). I have worked as a production DBA with a primary responsibility focused on security, performance, and especially stability. Working with best practices I’d first look into maximizing the utilization of existing hardware to squeeze out the best possible performance and then turn to focus on the database structure, queries, and indexing for further optimization. 

I have had a strong focus on digging deeper into SQL mechanics.  I have studied execution plans in detail, in-depth review of latches and locks within SQL Server, and manage/manipulate parallelism within SQL Server.  For 5 years I have built and supported SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups in the AWS EC2 Cloud.ook into maximizing the utilization of existing hardware to squeeze out the best possible performance and then turn to focus on the database structure, queries, and indexing for further optimization. 

10 year I have specialized in TSQL Development which has been guided by my experience as a DBA to write the fastest code while following best practices of both a DBA and a Developer.

I have had a strong focus on digging deeper into SQL mechanics.  I have studied execution plans in detail, in-depth review of latches and locks within SQL Server, and manage/manipulate parallelism within SQL Server.  For 5 years I have built and supported SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups in the AWS EC2 Cloud.

• Worked with a 4.6TB database for Choice Hotels and stabilized the server and improved operational performance.
• Implemented database maintenance as well as identifying causes of thread-pool exhaustion, PFS contention, blocking, and analyzing minidumps from SQL Server.
• Resolved misconfigurations with the SQL 2012 Availability Group that spans multiple subnets in the AWS EC2 cloud. 
• Built out new Availability Groups in AWS and migrated the 6.4TB database from the data center to a 3 node SQL Server 2016 AlwaysOn Availability Group in the AWS cloud.
• Migrated the SkyTouch HOS AWS production successfully from SQL Server 2012 to SQL Server 2016 three-node Availability Group.
• Maintained PowerShell scripts for various tasks.
• Supported and troubleshot SSIS issues as they would occur.
• Supported and troubleshot Service Broker issues.
• Made use of the AWS AMI for SQL Server 2016 Enterprise Edition to benefit from the billing per hour to avoid the upfront cost of buying the licensing outright.
• Leveraged the HADR functionality for the SQL Agent jobs to automatically switch between servers after manual or automatic failover. This helps the servers balance the load and run the jobs on the correct server without manual intervention where possible.
• Developed the Automatic Cache Plan Management (ACPM) to track and purge non-optimal cached plans for procedures and statements. This process would capture and aggregate execution stats of all running processes and report the worst offending statements (outliers) based on a daily calculated average. This information would then be used to create tasks to refactor the poor-performing statements for me and the other developers to address in our scrum sessions.
• Provided guidance and training to the Java developers on how to develop better performing stored procedures and improve the database design.
• Tuned numerous queries and logged bug reports for development to refactor schema and DML code that is causing performance degradation.
• Developed and refactored 100’s of stored procedures to carefully tune them to run on a 6.4TB production OLTP database.
• Refactored 100’s of procedures that used alter table statements against temp tables which resulted in TempDB contention.
• Worked with the Java teams to fix cases where transactions were left open that resulted in dead locks and blocking.
• Replaced the use of XML parameter stored procedures with JSON to eliminate the 200 cost per xquery statements that were exhausting the production servers CPU and RAM.
• Used computed columns in temp tables to eliminate functions in the WHERE predicate that resulted in a row by row table scan of every record.
• Worked with SSIS to move data into RedShift and later used AWS Glue to replace SSIS.
• Worked with Service Broker to send messages to other systems.
• Developed and maintained PowerShell scripts for various tasks.
• Provided guidance and training to the Java developers on how to develop better performing stored procedures and improve the database design.
• Worked with SSRS, Qlik Sense and R for reporting development.
• Participated in Agile Scrum sessions with the Java developer teams to handle TSQL tasks of drafting new or refactoring existing stored procedures.

• 2015 SQL PASS Summit with a focus on locks, latches and digging deeper into SQL engine troubleshooting
• 2012 SQL PASS Summit with a focus on SQL Server Optimizer / Execution Plans
• Fall 2008, Update class moving from SQL Server 2005 to 2008, Overland Park, KS.
• Summer 2000 and Spring 2001, studied Beginning and Intermediate C++ STL at UNM, Albuquerque, NM
• July 1999, studied Database Administration of Microsoft SQL 7.0 (832) at Data Management Systems, Albuquerque, NM
• May 1999, studied Access 97 at New Horizon Training Center, Albuquerque, NM