Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata

In addition to the data that our clients and customers store in a database, there is a tremendous amount of meta data, 'data about data', that describes how the database is set up, configured, and what the properties are for the various objects. This stairway aims to demystify and explain how you can query and use this meta data to more effectively manage your SQL Server Databases.

• SQL Server Dynamic Online Catalog: Why Should You Care? Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata Level 1

  In this first level, we look at the overview of what metadata is contained in each database, gain some understanding of the different types of information, and examine a few basic examples.

• Using SQL Server Dynamic Online Catalog to Solve Problems: Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata Level 2

  In this second level of the Stairway, Phil looks at where we go to find information about objects, using triggers as the example.

• Exploring SQL Server Indexes: Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata Level 3

  This level of the Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata focuses on indexes and all the information you can gather about them.

• Using SQL Server Dynamic Online Catalog to Explore Keys and Relationships: Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata Level 4

  This level introduces keys, constraints, and relationships.

• Exploring Facts About SQL Server Tables: Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata Level 5

  Now that we've explored, in preceding levels, some of the information that is available about indexes, triggers, keys and distribution statistics, we can concentrate on the tables themselves and their columns.

• Idempotent DDL Scripts That Always Achieve The Same Result - Making Changes Only Once: Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata Level 6

  Idempotence is the property of certain operations in mathematics and computer science, that can be applied multiple times without changing the result beyond the first time they are run. When you are making changes to a database to deploy a new version, you need to be sure that certain changes aren’t made twice, or in the wrong order.

• SQL Server Extended Properties: Stairway to Exploring Database Metadata Level 7

  In this level, I’ll introduce Extended Properties. As with the previous levels, I want to illustrate as much as possible with practical and immediately useful code.