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Demystifying Oracle's Clustering Factor

One of the more confusing statistics in Oracle is one called the clustering factor. Associated with an index, it's actually dependent on the table data, more specifically the distance between 'jumps' for a given index key. Commonly, a 'jump' is the number of blocks between rows containing the given index key starting with the first block found containing that key. If that sounds confusing don't despair, David Fitzjarrell explains in detail.

2015-07-29

3,764 reads

External Article

The Importance of Maintenance on MSDB

MSDB is a system database used by SQL Server. MSDB stores all sorts of data, such as backup history, log shipping monitor history, SSIS packages and Service Broker queue data to name a few. Just like user databases, MSDB needs regular maintenance, including index optimizations and, more importantly, regular purging. In this article, Tim Radney looks at how neglecting your MSDB can negatively impact on your environment.

2015-07-28

6,714 reads

External Article

SQL Style Habits: Attack of the Skeuomorphs

Although we like to think that our programming techniques are progressive and in tune with the bleeding edge of software development practices, too often they are directly influenced by restrictions faced when computers first became mainstream in the post-war decades. In this article Joe Celko looks at the history of mainframes, FORTRAN I and COBOL.

2015-07-24

5,006 reads

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Backup to Immutable Storage

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Microsoft Security Changes and SQL Server

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Question of the Day

Backup to Immutable Storage

In SQL Server 2025, a backup can be made on Azure Immutable Storage. What changes in how the backup is created?

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