Guidance
When you are looking to help someone improve performance on a system, there isn't a single set of steps you provide. The advice and guidance you provide will vary, depending on the situation.
Upgrading the GIS application and database.
In this article I will mention a specific issue that I experienced during my last GIS application and database upgrade.
Columnstore Indexes in SQL Server 2012
The columnstore index in SQL Server 2012 stores columns instead of rows, and is designed to speed up analytical processing and data-warehouse queries. Whilst columnstore indexes certainly do that effectively, they are not a universal panacea since there are a number of limitations on them. When used appropriately, they can reduce disk I/O and use memory more efficiently.
New SQL Monitor Custom Metric: Untrusted Foreign Keys
A foreign key points to a primary key that must exist in another table, for example, column X in Table 1 must also be present in Table 2. The key protects this link, and only valid data can be inserted in the foreign key column. An untrusted foreign key may threaten a database’s referential and data integrity.
SQL in the City Seminar Denver 2013 – SQL Development Seminar
Join Red Gate for a free seminar on September 27 (the day before SQL Saturday Denver). Steve Jones, SQL Server MVP and editor-in-chief of SQLServerCentral.com, will present best practices for SQL Server database development, in addition to showing Red Gate tools in action.
Implementing, loading and optimizing a Type 2 Slowly Changing Fact Table
This article shows how to implement a Slowly Changing Facts Table, how to overcome the problems encountered when using the MERGE statement to process the data and suggest a minimal set of indexes to aid data loading and quering.
The End of Privacy: Tragically Comical Edition
It’s hard to avoid privacy-based stories at the moment, with growing concern over government snooping and the limits of power. But where I’m based, in the UK, there’s a new, fully-privatised invasion of privacy. One marketing company has created an outdoor wi-fi basestation that grabs your phone’s MAC address as you pass, with the idea […]
SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services Partitioning Performance Demonstration
How much of an improvement in processing time can a simple SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) partitioning structure provide? Can you provide any examples? Does this processing time improvement only apply to the fact tables? Check out this tip to learn more.
Should He Stay or Should He Go?
Read the first page of the linked article and then cast your vote in this Friday's poll.
Data Science Laboratory System - Key/Value Pair Systems
Though the Key/Value pair paradigm is common to almost every computer language, there is no clear agreement yet for the definition of a Key/Value Pair database. However, Key/Value pair databases are valuable for special applications where speed of writing data is more important than searching and general versatility. Buck Woody experiments.
Blogs
Using SQL Compare with Redgate Data Modeler
By Steve Jones
Redgate recently released SQL Compare v16, which included a new feature to work with...
Who’s the Winningest Coach (with AI Help)
By Steve Jones
I was listening to the radio the other day and the hosts were discussing...
Learning from Mistakes: T-SQL Tuesday #194
By Steve Jones
We’re a week late, once again my fault. I was still coming out of...
Forums
What is Page Density
Comments posted to this topic are about the item What is Page Density
T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: Fuzzy String Search II
Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL in SQL Server 2025:...
Azure-SSIS, Self-Hosted Integration Runtime, & Data Gateway?
Looking to confirm my understanding of these three products and how they can be...
Question of the Day
What is Page Density
In SQL Server, there is a concept of page density. This is determined by how much data is stored on each page. What is a page density of 90%?
See possible answers