Databases Archives

SQL Server Plan Cache Warnings: Detecting PlanAffectingConvert, MissingIndexes, and More

Detect query plan warnings in the SQL Server plan cache - PlanAffectingConvert (implicit conversion), ConvertIssue, NoStatsFound, MissingIndexes, and others -...

11 February 2015 11 min read

Feodor Georgiev

Curing Data-Obesity in OLTP Databases

OLTP databases work best when data that becomes no longer current is then transferred to a separate database for analysis...

06 February 2015 13 min read

Jonathan Watts

The Promise – and the Pitfalls – of In-Memory OLTP

When SQL Server 2014 was released, it included Hekaton, Microsoft's much talked about memory-optimized engine that brings In-Memory OLTP into...

04 February 2015 7 min read

Michael K Campbell

The Importance of Caching

Performance tuning and optimization definitely have their place in minimizing SQL Server Licensing costs - by helping keep CPU utilization...

04 February 2015 15 min read

Satishbabu Gunukula

Oracle Database 12c – RMAN New Features: Part 3

Oracle Database 12c has new enhancements and additions in Recovery Manager (RMAN). The Recovery Manager continues to enhance and extend...

02 February 2015 8 min read

Dwain Camps

Bowled Over by SQL Window Functions

What better way to learn how to construct complex CHECK CONSTRAINTs, use the SQL 2012 window frame capability of the...

26 January 2015 27 min read

Dennes Torres

Centralize Your Database Monitoring Process

SQL Server Data Collector, together with Management Data Warehouse, is a fine and useful component for gathering information centrally about...

26 January 2015 17 min read

Robert Sheldon

Questions About T-SQL Control-of-Flow Language You Were Too Shy to Ask

Surely, we all know how T-SQL Control-of-flow language works? In fact it is surprisingly easy to get caught out. What,...

26 January 2015 29 min read

Phil Factor

A Start with Automating Database Configuration Management

For a number of reasons, it pays to have the up-to-date source of all the databases and servers that you're...

16 January 2015 24 min read

AWS

Robert Sheldon in AWS

Amazon’s Aurora: A Distributed SQL Database Alternative For MySQL Applications

SQL-based distributed Cloud Relational databases aren't new, but Amazon's Aurora offers an alternative to SQL Azure, and, being MySQL-compatible, provides...

15 January 2015 13 min read

Jonathan Lewis

Execution Plans Part 12: Cardinality Feedback

In the previous instalment of this series I introduced three ways of accessing the run-time statistics for a query and...

13 January 2015 13 min read

Grant Fritchey

SQL Server Execution Plans for Developers: Query Tuning Guide by Grant Fritchey

Grant Fritchey explains why SQL Server developers need to read execution plans: identify N+1 problems from ORMs, diagnose poorly designed...

12 January 2015 31 min read

Feodor Georgiev

How to get ETL Horribly Wrong

ETL ( Extract, transform, load) doesn't have to be like a spell on hell. To make a success of ETL...

09 January 2015 14 min read

Kathi Kellenberger

SQL Server Reporting Services Basics: Deploying Reports

Having designed and tested our reports, it's time to deploy them to the Report Server, so that our users can...

06 January 2015 21 min read

Joe Celko

Discrete and Continuous data in SQL

Not all data is discrete; some data types represent a continuum. In SQL, we have to approximate them and live...

06 January 2015 17 min read

Robert Sheldon

SQL Server PIVOT: 12 Questions Answered (Multi-Column, Dynamic, UNPIVOT)

Twelve answered questions about the SQL Server PIVOT operator: how PIVOT rotates data, controlling grouping, column aliases, multi-column pivots, dynamic...

01 January 2015 30 min read

Feodor Georgiev

Data Cleaning in SQL 2012 with Data Quality Services

For data to be usefully analyzed, it must be consistent, accurate, and trustworthy. When incoming data is non-uniform, duplicated records...

31 December 2014 11 min read

Dennes Torres

SQL Server Query Plans: Finding Scan and Lookup Problems with DMVs and XQuery

Use SQL Server DMVs (sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats) and XQuery against cached query plans to find queries causing scan and lookup problems. Converts...

31 December 2014 15 min read

Dwain Camps

Archiving Hierarchical, Deleted Transactions Using XML

When you delete a business transaction from the database, there are times when you might want to keep a record...

30 December 2014 18 min read

Jonathan Lewis

Execution Plans Part 11: Actuals

So far in this series we’ve talked about interpreting the shape of an execution plan and understanding the meaning of...

17 December 2014 13 min read