We soon learn, in SQL Server, that heaps are a bad thing, without necessarily understanding how or why. Jonathan Lewis is an Oracle expert who doesn't like to take such strictures for granted, especially when they don't apply to Oracle. Jonathan discovers much about how SQL Server places data, and concludes from his experiments that heaps perform badly in SQL Server because you cannot specify a fill factor for them.… Read more
A well-known Oracle expert records faithfully his struggles with the unfamiliar : SQL Server. He now sets himself the task of creating a table with a million rows of random data. As one might expect, it is the lack of familiarity with the workarounds and tricks of SQL Server that trips him up. His journey brings us fresh insights, and a glimpse at the alternative-universe of Oracle.… Read more
When a SQL expert moves from Oracle to SQL Server, he can spot obvious strengths and weaknesses in the product that are too familiar to be apparent to the SQL Server DBA. Jonathan Lewis is one such expert: In this article he records his train of thought whilst investigating the mechanics of the SQL Server database engine. The result makes interesting reading.… Read more
