The End of Big Data

What is next for big data? Some experts claim that data "volumes, velocity, variety and veracity" will only increase over time, requiring more data storage, faster machines and more sophisticated analysis tools. However, this is short-sighted, and does not take into account how data degrades over time. Analysis of historical data will always be with us, but generation of the most useful analyses will be done with data we already have. To adapt, most organizations must grow and mature their analytical environments. Lockwood Lyon shares the steps they must take to prepare for the transition.

The Enterprise DBA Mindset as a Practical Problem-solving Approach

In order to keep the demands of the job under control, any DBA needs to automate as many as possible of the suitable tasks that their role demands. What makes a task suitable? How do you judge whether it is worthwhile? Can we take a 'managed', consistent, decision? Joshua Feierman explains the practicalities with a real example.

How to Identify Useful SQL Server Table Statistics

In this article, Fikrat Azizov describes the different approaches to maintaining statistics and shows how you can use the data from your servers for intelligent statistics updates.

Is a RID Lookup faster than a Key Lookup?

For T-SQL Tuesday #78, Aaron Bertrand takes a look at whether RID Lookups are faster than Key Lookups, with a small battery of fairly simple duration tests.

Connecting to SQL Data Warehouse

The most frustrating thing with any new system is often just working out how to connect to it. Oddly, you can’t use SSMS with SQL Data Warehouse, but it is fine with SSDT, SSIS, Power BI desktop, sqlcmd, BCP, and a range of Microsoft cloud services - there are PowerShell Cmdlets too. Rob Sheldon provides the details.

Automatically Creating UML Database Diagrams for SQL Server

SQL Server database developers seem reluctant to use diagrams when documenting their databases. It is probably because it has, in the past, been difficult to automatically draw precisely what you want, other than a vast Entity-relationship diagram. However, you can do it without buying any third-party tool, just using some existing Java-based open-source tools; and can even automate it entirely, using SQL and PowerShell. Phil Factor shows how.

A tour through tool improvements in SQL Server 2016

Ayo Olubeko talks through the improvements being made to SQL Server tooling in 2016.

Implementing Azure SQL Database Elastic Database Jobs

Sometimes it's good to re-think how to write a query; set operations can provide performance benefits over 'straight SQL'. In this article, David Fitzjarrell takes a look at one such example in action.

Inside-SQL Conference: SQL Server Deep Dives in London

14th June, Londo, UK - Inside-SQL conference offers deep dives on a range of SQL Server topics, with tracks focusing on DBAs, Developers and BI.

Use the discount code "Redgate" for £40 off the price of a ticket.

Unified Approach to Generating Documentation for PowerShell Cmdlets

Now, it is easy to provide professional-quality documentation for PowerShell cmdlets, and to keep it in sync when you make changes, whether they are written in PowerShell or C#. While this has always been easy to do in PowerShell, it was always painful to do in C# or VB because it meant having to build your own MAML file. Michael Sorens completes his three-part series by summarising, in a wallchart, how to go about it.