Which Bugs Do You Find?
This Friday Steve Jones wonders what types of bugs you find in software. Are there more prevalent because of design or coding?
NewSQL: The Relational Model Meets Distributed Architectures
Research firm The 451 Group coins "NewSQL" to categorize a new breed of database designed for distributed environments -- like the cloud.
SQL Server Blocking Monitoring
Monitoring blocking can be problematic when you cannot catch it in the act. This article will show you an easy way to configure a SQL Server Profiler Trace to monitor blocking
The Three Percent Difference
Today we have a guest editorial from Andy Warren. Most people get an annual review that determines what their salary change might be for the next year. Does 3% make a difference? Andy Warren asks the question today.
Scaling Up Your Data Warehouse with SQL Server 2008 R2
SQL Server 2008 introduced many new functional and performance improvements for data warehousing, and SQL Server 2008 R2 includes all these and more. This paper discusses how to use SQL Server 2008 R2 to get great performance as your data warehouse scales up. We present lessons learned during extensive internal data warehouse testing on a 64-core HP Integrity Superdome during the development of the SQL Server 2008 release, and via production experience with large-scale SQL Server customers. Our testing indicates that many customers can expect their performance to nearly double on the same hardware they are currently using, merely by upgrading to SQL Server 2008 R2 from SQL Server 2005 or earlier, and compressing their fact tables. We cover techniques to improve manageability and performance at high-scale, encompassing data loading (extract, transform, load), query processing, partitioning, index maintenance, indexed view (aggregate) management, and backup and restore.
Stalking the Bad Guys
What do yo do if you find malicious code in your system? Delete it? Steve Jones suggests that a honeypot might be a better idea.
Database Management for SharePoint 2010
With each revision, SharePoint becomes more a SQL Server Database application, with everything that implies for planning and deployment. There are advantages to this: SharePoint can make use of mirroring, data-compression and remote BLOB storage. It can employ advanced tools such as data file compression, and object-level restore. DBAs can employ familiar techniques to speed SharePoint applications. Bert explains the way that SharePoint and SQL Server interact.
Asynchronous Procesing with Service Broker
Service Broker is a great feature that allows you to defer processing in SQL Server. Learn how you can have processes work together, but in an asynchronous fashion in this piece from Gary Strange.
Working Long or Working Hard?
Would you rather work longer hours or tackle harder work? Steve Jones comments today on a recent post by Seth Godin. The answer as to what most people prefer might surprise you.
SQL Server Replication: Providing High Availability using Database Mirroring
This white paper describes how to use database mirroring to increase the availability of the replication stream in a transactional environment. The document covers setting up replication in a mirrored environment, the effect of mirroring partnership state changes, and the effect of mirroring failovers on replication. In addition, it describes how to use LSN-based initialization to recover from the failover of a mirrored Subscriber database.
Blogs
A New Word: los vidados
By Steve Jones
los vidados – n. the half-remembered acquaintances you knew years ago, who you might...
In-Person CISA Training – April 13-16, 2026
By Brian Kelley
I will be leading an in-person Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) exam prep class...
EightKB 2026
EightKB is back again for 2026! The biggest online SQL Server internals conference is...
Forums
Vectors in SQL Server 2025
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Vectors in SQL Server 2025
Odd Sequences
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Odd Sequences
Everything is the right question away
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Everything is the right question...
Question of the Day
Odd Sequences
What values are returned from this code?
CREATE SEQUENCE NumericSequence
AS NUMERIC(5,1)
START WITH 1.0
INCREMENT BY 0.1;
GO
SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR NumericSequence
GO
SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR NumericSequence
GO See possible answers