The Death March
Are you working too hard? Is it worth it? Steve Jones says that it is not and that you should push back.
Showplan Operator of the Week – BookMark/Key Lookup
Fabiano continues in his mission to describe the major Showplan Operators used by SQL Server's Query Optimiser. This week he meets a star, the Key Lookup, a stalwart performer, but most famous for its role in ill-performing queries where an index does not 'cover' the data required to execute the query. If you understand why, and in what circumstances, key lookups are slow, it helps greatly with optimising query performance.
A Smarter Planet
IBM has this tagline about a smarter planet and has a great video about the Internet of Things. Steve Jones looks at some of the issues we might have in actually using all this data.
Clustered Indexes? Sedimentary, my dear Watson
There is much sound advice suggesting that every table should have a clustered index, and that narrow, integer, ever-increasing columns, such as afforded by an IDENTITY column are the best choice. But is the sedimentary approach really the natural order of the day?
Optimising Server-Side Paging - Part II
The second part of this series compares four methods of obtaining the total number of rows in a paged data set.
Analyzing I/O Characteristics and Sizing Storage Systems for SQL Server Database Applications
Understanding how to analyze the characteristics of I/O patterns in the Microsoft® SQL Server® data management software and how they relate to a physical storage configuration is useful in determining deployment requirements for any given workload. A well-performing I/O subsystem is a critical component of any SQL Server application. I/O subsystems should be sized in the same manner as other hardware components such as memory and CPU. As workloads increase it is common to increase the number of CPUs and increase the amount of memory. Increasing disk resources is often necessary to achieve the right performance, even if there is already enough capacity to hold the data.
Where a Rose is not a rose…
Just because mistakes have become entrenched in the computer languages that we use doesn't mean we have to tolerate them
The Rise of NoSQL Databases
The NoSQL concept has been attracting a lot of attention in recent years, primarily due to big-name production implementations.
Does the Job Matter To You?
How important is your job to you? Today's guest editorial from Andy Warren asks the question of the professionals out there, some of whom do great work, but don't care about their jobs.
1st New England Business Intelligence Code Camp
This is a major Business Intelligence community event for Developers and IT professionals that focus on building real-world BI solutions using the Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform tools and technology on May 22nd 2010! May 22 in Waltham, MA
Blogs
Are you getting value from your reporting?
By ChrisJenkins
Do you spend so long manipulating your data into something vaguely useful that you...
The Book of Redgate: SQL Server Central
By Steve Jones
It was neat to stumble on this in the book, a piece by me,...
Git forked
Forgive me for the title. Mentally I’m 12. When I started my current day...
Forums
Microsoft Security Changes and SQL Server
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Microsoft Security Changes and SQL...
Expanding into Print
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Expanding into Print
Downtime Caused by the Postgres Transaction ID Wraparound Problem
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Downtime Caused by the Postgres...
Question of the Day
The String Distance I
In SQL Server 2025, what is returned by this code:
SELECT EDIT_DISTANCE('Steve', 'Stan')
Assume preview features are enabled. See possible answers