New to the task of designing and creating a database? Joe Celko, who is one of the most widely read of all writers about SQL, explains the basics. As usual, he comes up with the occasional surprise for even the most seasoned database professional. Joe was the winner of the DBMS Magazine Reader's Choice Award four consecutive years. He has taught SQL in the US, UK, the Nordic countries, South America and Africa. He served 10 years on ANSI/ISO SQL Standards Committee and contributed to the SQL-89 and SQL-92 Standards.   Read more...

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An introduction to database design for those people that might not understand what is involved.  Read more...

As the volume of data increases, DBAs need to plan more actively for rapid restores in the event of failure. For this, the intelligent use of filegroups is important, particularly when the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server offers the hope of online restores. How, though, should you arrange your data on the different filegroups? What happenens if the primary filegroup gets corrupted? Why backup and restore indexes?  Read more...

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Before you start to think about your database schema or tables, you need to consider your data: the type of data it is, the scale you use for values. It needs to be unique, precise and unambiguous. Then you need to name it in such a way that it can be generally understood. Joe Celko explains...  Read more...

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There are lots of things to think about when you design a physical database. What data types should I use? What column is appropriate for the primary key? Are there particular indexes that I should use to improve performance? How should I implement data integrity rules? This list goes on and on. In this article Greg Larsen will be exploring different physical database design elements.  Read more...

If you’ve been working with databases for any length of time, you have heard the term normalization. Normalization is the process...  Read more...

Bad data always seems to appear when, and where, one least expects it. Sam explains the great value of a defensive approach based on constraints to any team that is developing an application in which the data has to be exactly right, and where bad data could cause consequential severe financial damage. It is perhaps better seen as creating a test-driven database.  Read more...

In the final step of Database Design, Joe Celko gives a simple but effective explanation of the normalization process and why it is important.  Read more...

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This level of the stairway details the creation of a relational database, as well as filling in some of the history of the relational database model.  Read more...

This final level to the first landing completes the basics of a SQL database, by explaining what cursors are and why you should never use them.   Read more...

On Thursday October 20th ,MVP Louis Davidson will discuss the why normalized databases are the most important part of query tuning  Read more...

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In levels one to four, we built the tables, base and virtual, of a schema. Levels five and six dealt with stored procedures. This level deals with a feature you need to avoid as much as possible; this is article is on Triggers.  Read more...

Having covered the procedure headers in SQL Server in the previous level, Joe tackles the subject of the contents of stored procedures. In this level, he outlines limitations of TSQL as a procedural language, and what you need to bear in mind when deciding how to use them.  Read more...

GUIDs are often regarded as a necessary evil but how necessary are they?  Read more...