Long table locks

Hi
There is an application that runs on sql server.
The application selects/updates some few tables frequently
Once there is even a select on this table .It blocks other users
sometimes for very long.
Is there anything that can be done to reduce this?
The table has 18000 rows and does not seem to have an index
I thought indexing might help but 18000 rows without an index is
no reason for 30 minutes of lock time.
I will appreciate your help as usual
VinceVincento Harris (wumutek@.yahoo.com) writes:
> There is an application that runs on sql server.
> The application selects/updates some few tables frequently
> Once there is even a select on this table .It blocks other users
> sometimes for very long.
> Is there anything that can be done to reduce this?
> The table has 18000 rows and does not seem to have an index
> I thought indexing might help but 18000 rows without an index is
> no reason for 30 minutes of lock time.

Yes, something can probably be done, but the information you've provided
is not sufficient to say what should be done.

The key to nail down performance problems is information. Exactly
what is taking long time? And are there any transactions that are
open for all this time? You might get some useful information by
tracing this process with the Profiler.

Is this ia an in-house app, or a something you've bought from a vendor?

--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, sommar@.algonet.se

Books Online for SQL Server SP3 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techin.../2000/books.asp