Two weeks ago Andy started his wildly successful series on Worst Practices. This week he continues that series discussing why failing to use primary keys and clustered indexes are worst practices. Agree or disagree, read the article and join the discussion. One thing you'll have to admit, reading an article by Andy is a lot more interesting than reading Books Online!   Read more...

Most DBAs are constantly looking for ways to tune their servers to run better. Joe Doherty brings us the second part of his series on indexes with an in depth look at how the indexes are stored in your database.   Read more...

Most DBAs are constantly looking for ways to tune their servers to run better. Joe Doherty brings us the second part of his series on indexes with an in depth look at how the indexes are stored in your database.   Read more...

This article covers a few, more advanced topics about the usage of clustered indexes in SQL Server. Not only will I try to convince you of the absolute necessity of using clustered indexes, I'll also give you some tips on how to use them in a not so obvious context.   Read more...

Index Creation Guidelines for SQL Server can be pretty sparse. Usually there are a couple, clustered index for ranges, nonclustered, etc. Leo Peysakhovich has taken some time to write down his guidelines based on his experience for creating indexes and the rational for doing so. He's also taken a few minutes to look at which indexes NOT to create, something that might be worth knowing..   Read more...

Two weeks ago Andy started his wildly successful series on Worst Practices. This week he continues that series discussing why failing to use primary keys and clustered indexes are worst practices. Agree or disagree, read the article and join the discussion. One thing you'll have to admit, reading an article by Andy is a lot more interesting than reading Books Online!   Read more...

SQL Server 2000 has indexed views, which can greatly improve database performance. However there are a number of restrictions on building the view, including the restriction against outer joins. So how can this work? New author Jean Charles Bulinckx brings us a technique that can help you get around this restriction.   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...

When it comes to auditing index use in SQL Server databases, I sometimes get overwhelmed. For example, how to do you go about auditing indexes in a database with over 1,500 tables? While auditing a single index is relatively straight-forward, auditing thousands of them in multiple databases is not an easy task. Whether the task is easy or not, it is an important task if you want to optimize the performance of your SQL Server databases.   Read more...

There is nothing spectacular about using indexes per say. However, on many occasions I have come across a variety of SQL coders that never consider validating that the index they think they are using is efficient or even being used at all. We can all put indexes on the columns that we think will be required to satisfy individual queries, but how do we know if they will ever be used. You see, if the underlying table data is constructed, contains, or is ordered in a particular way, our indexes may never be used. One of the factors around the use of an index is its clustering factor and this is what this article is about.  Read more...

SQL Server depends heavily on good indexing to perform well. The optimizer requires relevant and intelligent indexing in order to do its job well. Author Andre Vigneau brings us a script that he uses to detect possible index problems in the database design as well as a number of hints to ensure that your database is performing optimally.   Read more...

Indexing performance has always been the Achilles' heel of SQL Server's full-text feature. Although the search performance itself is fast (very few customers complain about the search speed), users do complain (often loudly and frequently) about how slow the indexing process is–especially for large tables. Here's a few tips for you.  Read more...

A short piece on indexing using multiple columns. For those of you that have 10 single column indexes, read a little about why you might choose to index on multiple columns.  Read more...

What happens to SQL Server 2000 indexes over time? Fragmentation is one of the effects and Steve Jones looks at how you can work with and identity fragmentation.   Read more...

Index Creation Guidelines for SQL Server can be pretty sparse. Usually there are a couple, clustered index for ranges, nonclustered, etc. Leo Peysakhovich has taken some time to write down his guidelines based on his experience for creating indexes and the rational for doing so. He's also taken a few minutes to look at which indexes NOT to create, something that might be worth knowing..   Read more...

Ramesh writes about various indexing strategies that you might use to improve performance.   Read more...

Most of us know what it is, or do we? Chris works on a good definition and along with that, gets into a good look at the problems denormalization creates and talks about a pretty common form of it - the indexed view.   Read more...

Chris Kempster brings us a basic look at the database design topic of denormalization.  Read more...

Two weeks ago Andy started his wildly successful series on Worst Practices. This week he continues that series discussing why failing to use primary keys and clustered indexes are worst practices. Agree or disagree, read the article and join the discussion. One thing you'll have to admit, reading an article by Andy is a lot more interesting than reading Books Online!   Read more...

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...

Most DBAs are constantly looking for ways to tune their servers to run better. Joe Doherty brings us the second part of his series on indexes with an in depth look at how the indexes are stored in your database.   Read more...

Chris Kempster brings us a basic look at the database design topic of denormalization.  Read more...

SQL Server depends heavily on good indexing to perform well. The optimizer requires relevant and intelligent indexing in order to do its job well. Author Andre Vigneau brings us a script that he uses to detect possible index problems in the database design as well as a number of hints to ensure that your database is performing optimally.   Read more...