SQL Server Performance Tuning Part 1 (Udemy.com)

This is Part 1 of a two-part series from a veteran DBA, and it is a six-hour, 37-lecture tour of the building blocks of SQL Server tuning. Topics include indexes, wait stats, fill factor and page splits, execution plans, locking and blocking, tempdb and caching, mostly shown live in SSMS. The label says Beginner, but the requirements ask for a good grasp of SQL Server administration. Reviewers who got the most out of it already wrote queries or ran databases.

Students like the plain explanations and the examples. One reviewer who writes queries and procs but is not a DBA called it a perfect fit, and another found it deeper than the query tuning they expected. The complaints repeat. Raphael Asghar knows the material, reviewers say, but his delivery can feel rushed, with fumbled words and typos in the T-SQL that get fixed on camera. The slides look unpolished. Several people wanted downloadable scripts and real exercises, and a few called it shallow. One disputed the waits and recompile lectures.

The course was last updated in March 2020. Still, about 86 percent of roughly 6,000 reviews give four or five stars, and more than 25,000 students have joined. It works as a map of the topics, not a lab. Developers and junior DBAs who want that map in an afternoon will be fine. Anyone after practice problems or advanced plan analysis should look for something more hands-on, and reviewers expect Part 2 to go deeper.