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Posts by
Phil Factor

Phil Factor (real name withheld to protect the guilty), aka Database Mole, has 30 years of experience with database-intensive applications.

Despite having once been shouted at by a furious Bill Gates at an exhibition in the early 1980s, he has remained resolutely anonymous throughout his career.

He is a regular contributor to Simple Talk and SQLServerCentral.

Phil Factor

18 January 2021

Phil Factor

18 January 2021

Is Tempdb Causing a Bottleneck?

One of your SQL Server instance shows a major dip in performance or throughput, affecting all the user databases. You notice that the slow interludes coincide, as if orchestrated. On investigation, it appears that several transactions running over that period were using a lot of space in tempdb. However, which of them, if any,... Read more

Phil Factor

18 December 2020

Phil Factor

18 December 2020

Finding Inactive SQL Server Databases

Phil Factor demonstrates how to identify objects in a database that are not being used. The technique uses Extended Events to detect acquisition of Intent locks, and so determine which databases are active or apparently 'dormant', and then drills down to investigate on which tables data has been modified recently, and which views and... Read more

Phil Factor

27 November 2020

Phil Factor

27 November 2020

Data Masking in Practice

This article takes a strategic look at common SQL data masking techniques, and the challenges inherent in masking certain types of sensitive and personal data, while ensuring that it still looks like the real data, and retains its referential integrity, and distribution characteristics. It also explains, briefly, with references, the tools that one can... Read more

data protection and privacy

Phil Factor

27 November 2020

Phil Factor

27 November 2020

The Joy of Realistic Generated Fake Database Data

Have you ever had to demonstrate a database-driven application, and longed to have the real data to do so? To do what, precisely? Well, so you can then scroll through the customers who have used the system, demonstrate the accounting and audit, browse through the products, maybe even demo the customer tracking system with... Read more