The SQL Server CPU Usage (Percent) alert indicates an unusually high amount of CPU usage by SQL Server. The percentage of SQL Server processor usage is listed under the control. A high SQL Server percentage could indicate a large number of active client sessions.
Reduce your SQL Server CPU usage
Consistently high SQL Server processor usage could indicate the need to:
- Reduce the number of SQL re-compilations as they are CPU intensive. There are many reasons that an object such as a stored procedure is recompiled and you can remove most of these reasons by careful coding.
- Make sure that all T-SQL statements (whether in a stored procedure, trigger or ad hoc statement) that reference objects fully qualify the object referenced.
For example: SELECT * FROM Northwind.dbo Employees
is a fully-qualified object reference whereas SELECT * FROM Employees
is a poorly-qualified object. You can reuse the execution plans of fully-qualified objects "as is," whereas plans where you either cannot reuse the not fully-qualified objects or, if they are reused, then they are subject to a highly restrictive COMPILE
lock while SQL Server determines if all of the objects referenced in the T-SQL code have the same owners as the execution plan currently in cache. Both of these situations consume a significant amount of CPU time.