Interesting info about why the optimizer might choose to use a nonclustered index over a clustered index. Links to two other articles that cover each type of index in more detail.  Read more...

Chris does a follow up to his very popular article on clustered indexes. They seem simple, but in practice they are fairly complicated. Having a solid understanding of clustered indexes will definitely help you get the results you need.   Read more...

This article by Jon Winer offers some tips to help you get the most of SQL Full Text Search.   Read more...

Chris discusses questions raised by his first article on clustered indexes. Few subjects more important to master than clustered indexes, this is good reading!   Read more...

Integrate high performance index- and search functionality in your SQL database. Essentially, IMP Index Manager is a set of tools (search engine, administrative interface, etc.) to make it very easy to add search engine capabilities to SQL Server 2000. Easy to implement, and lightening fast performance. (Not Reviewed)   Read more...

A monster book at 980 pages, it's written in 'how-to' format and has a ton of good material. Andy gave it the once over for us and reports back - see what he thinks!   Read more...

Quite a while back Andy wrote an article about why not using primary keys and clustered indexes was a worst practice. Chris weighs in this week with a great article that gives some more in depth info on clustered indexes and why he thinks they should be used on every table.   Read more...

This white paper discusses the basics of indexes, such as density and selectivity, effects of many versus few indexes, long versus short keys, covering indexes, and how the SQL Server optimizer chooses indexes  Read more...

Andy sits down with an entry level book to see if he should use it at work as a teaching aid. Did he like it? Should you buy it? Read the review now!   Read more...

Andy did "Under the Covers" last week, what the heck will it be next week? Read this article to see how maintenance plans update statistics, rebuild indexes, and remove free space from your databases. Add your comments to the article, maybe even a suggestion or two for better titles!   Read more...

In this follow up article Andy looks at how maintenance plans report errors and how they actually accomplish what they do. A little snooping with Profiler reveals all!   Read more...

This book from Microsoft Press has a lot of good information that will help you do capacity planning and performance tuning. Is it worth buying though? Andy just finishing reading it and writing the review, see what he thinks!   Read more...

Do you use the maintenance plans or hate them? Wish they would do more? Curious about how they work under the hood? Cmon, you gotta read this one! Trust us, it's not another "how-to" article! Well, maybe just a little bit!   Read more...

We all know what the ideal application design environment is for building a database back-end: an experienced DBA takes inputs from end users and developers and creates the database design in order to support the application being developed. But in reality, we don't get the opportunity to do application design like this very often. This article covers how to quickly find and fix problems in a design.   Read more...

The Index Wizard is a handy tool shipped as part of the SQL 7 Profiler that can analyze a set of SQL queries and suggest index changes that could improve their performance.   Read more...

Jon Winer talks about his adventures with Index Server and provides some hints to help you avoid some common problems.   Read more...