Why does Microsoft SQL Server 2012 query take minutes over JDBC 4.0 but second(s) in Management Studio?

Question

I am dealing with what is apparently a performance issue while retrieving a relatively large

Answer 1

The adaptive buffering is a good answer. I would also recommend checking the connections' SET options via SQL Server Profiler.

When you start a trace, make sure ExistingConnections is selected. Compare a SPID from a JDBC connection and a SSMS connection. ARITHABORT comes to mind as one that I have seen cause a difference in performance between SSMS and JDBC driver. Microsoft briefly mentions it here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190306.aspx. Stack Exchange information here: https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/9840/why-would-set-arithabort-on-dramatically-speed-up-a-query

On Oracle, I have seen huge impacts by playing with the setFetchSize method on the Statement / PreparedStatement object. Apparently, the SQL Server driver does not support that method. However, there is an internal method in the driver for it. See Set a default row prefetch in SQL Server using JDBC driver for details.

Also, what are you doing in your while (rs.next()) loop? Try doing nothing other than reading a column, like rs.getInt(1). See what happens. If it flies, that suggests the bottleneck is in your former processing of the result set. If it is still slow, then the problem must be in the driver or database.

You could use SQL Server Profiler to compare the executions as they come in via JDBC and as you run it via SSMS. Compare the CPU, reads, writes and duration. If they are different, then the execution plan is probably different, which points me back to the first thing I mentioned: the SET options.