Whatever happened to Database Table Refactoring?
Phil Factor ponders why most people lost their initial enthusiasm for refactoring databases iteratively, in parallel with the evolutionary design of the rest of the system.
2015-09-21
186 reads
Phil Factor
- Interests: Motorbikes, Beer, gardening, conservation, Local history.
2015-08-31
300 reads
Nope to NoOps, No way to NoDBA
Phil Factor suspect the NoOps movement is dressing up some old mistakes in fancy new clothes.
2015-08-17
268 reads
Are DacPacs ready for prime-time?
DacPacs have been around for a while but DBAs have not, in the past, taken them particularly seriously. Is it time to get involved and influence the way the technology develops?
2015-07-20
170 reads
Is the role of the DBA really changing radically?
The term 'DBA' has been the despair of the IT industry, particularly IT recruitment, because there has been so little consensus as to what, precisely, it means. Phil Factor tries to clarify.
2015-07-06
213 reads
Not a cloud to be seen
Phil factor find much to admire in the StackOverflow architecture. It is built on SQL Server, doesn't use microservices or the cloud. It all seems a bit retro, but it manages manage 440 million queries a day, peaking at 8500 queries per second, and never even breaks into a sweat.
2015-06-29
133 reads
Not Only a Meeting of Minds, but of Open Minds.
In which Phil Factor claims that professional application development requires a broad knowledge base.
2015-05-11
105 reads
Don't exaggerate the difficulties of the RDBMS
Phil Factor argues that in learning about relational databases such as SQL Server, we should encourage people to "break a few pots".
2015-04-13
159 reads
Obedience Training For Databases: Cascading Constraints
In which Phil Factor illustrates in TSQL how it is possible to use foreign key constraints to enforce data rules, and illustrates some surprising consequences of using cascading.
2015-03-30
3,070 reads
One Rule, Umpteen Constraints
Despite being deprecated for many years, Phil Factor explains why RULEs are still hanging on in there in SQL Server 2014.
2015-03-30
110 reads
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Question of the Day
Backing Up a DMK
In SQL Server 2025, I have a database with a Database Masker Key (DMK). I want to back up this key and keep a copy offline. When do I have to open this key before running the backup?
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