Databases Archives

Robert Sheldon

14 SQL Server Indexing Questions You Were Too Shy To Ask

One of the first things one needs to understand well about SQL Server is indexes, but somehow many of the...

25 March 2014 22 min read

Dwain Camps

High Performance Relational Division in SQL Server

Relational division is used in SQL to select rows that conform to a number of different criteria. It is a...

24 March 2014 28 min read

Randolf Geist

Parallel Execution Skew – Introduction

This is the first part of a mini-series about Parallel Execution Skew and how to address it. Introduction So what...

18 March 2014 10 min read

Jonathan Lewis

Execution Plans: Part 1 Finding plans

If you have to tackle performance problems in an Oracle database one of the most important skills you need to...

12 March 2014 14 min read

Warwick Rudd

AlwaysOn Availability Groups – What Not to do when Adding Databases

SQL Server's AlwaysOn Availability Groups provide a very resilient way of providing High-availability for SQL Server databases, but there are...

10 March 2014 10 min read

Joshua Feierman

Applying The Scientific Method to SQL Server Performance Tuning

Database administrators tend to rely more on science than intuition, and may therefore seem exasperatingly cautious to other IT people....

10 March 2014 14 min read

Laerte Junior

The PoSh DBA – Specifying and Gathering Performance Counters

If you are needing to keep tabs on a number of servers and applications in a Windows domain then performance...

07 March 2014 18 min read

Joe Celko

On Handling Dates in SQL

The calendar is inherently complex by the very nature of the astronomy that underlies the year, and the conflicting historical...

06 March 2014 16 min read

David Njoku

Oracle for Absolute Beginners: Part 4 – Multi-table queries

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 A wise man* once said: To build the Great Wall of China, you must...

03 March 2014 10 min read

Syed Jaffar Hussain

Gaining maximum benefits from Oracle Data Guard

When Oracle initially introduced the standby database concepts, the solo intention was to deliver the solutions to protect enterprise critical...

26 February 2014 6 min read

Robert Sheldon

Seven SQL Server Under-Used Utilities

There are more than ten useful command-line applications that are either associated with, or are distributed with, SQL Server. Some,...

25 February 2014 13 min read

Fabiano Amorim

Fixing Cache Bloat Problems With Guide Plans and Forced Parameterization

Imagine it. You've been asked to fix a dire performance problem with a SQL Server database. You find a severe...

20 February 2014 10 min read

Dwain Camps

Gaps in Overlapping Time Intervals in SQL Server: Packing Intervals and Finding Inactivity

Finding gaps of inactivity between overlapping time intervals in SQL Server - packing overlapping login, event, or occupancy periods into...

14 February 2014 21 min read

David Njoku

Oracle for Absolute Beginners: Part 3 – Update, Insert, Delete

Part 1, Part 2. A wise man* once said: So no-one told you life was gonna be this way. Your...

13 February 2014 10 min read

David Tate

Guerrilla Project Management for DBAs

All DBAs need to engage in a little project management to help make sure everything runs smoothly. In this extract...

13 February 2014 27 min read

Learn SQL Server

Jes Borland in Learn SQL Server

SQL Server Indexed Views: What They Are and How to Create Them

SQL Server indexed views persist query results as a physical clustered index, making complex aggregations and joins fast for repeated...

12 February 2014 24 min read

Joe Celko

SQL Server SEQUENCE Basics

The SEQUENCE statement introduced in SQL Server 2012 brings the ANSI SQL 2003 standard method of generating IDs. This is...

06 February 2014 13 min read

Patrick Barel

Result Cache (Part 2)

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. – Albert Einstein In part 1 we...

04 February 2014 5 min read

Nirmal Sharma

Hosting SQL Server in Hyper-V Replica Environment

A Hyper-V replica will provide a rapid disaster-recovery by simply replicating to a standby site a VM running at the...

04 February 2014 26 min read

Patrick Barel

Result Cache (Part 1)

First, solve the problem. Then, write the code. – John Johnson We are always looking for ways to do things...

28 January 2014 5 min read