The columnstore index in SQL Server 2012 stores columns instead of rows, and is designed to speed up analytical processing and data-warehouse queries. Whilst columnstore indexes certainly do that effectively, they are not a universal panacea since there are a number of limitations on them. When used appropriately, they can reduce disk I/O and use memory more efficiently.… Read more
High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) can be provided for subscription databases from an AlwaysOn Avaliability Group, but the secondary replicas will need to be manually configured to create the new subscriptions… Read more
The error handling of SQL Server has always been somewhat mysterious. Now at last, the THROW statement has been included in SQL Server 2012 that, combined with the TRY ... CATCH block, makes error handling far easier. Robert Sheldon explains all.… Read more
One of the most obvious bottlenecks in the performance of tempdb is caused by PAGELATCH, in-memory latch contention on the allocation bitmap of each data file used. We can use one of the rules-of-thumb to choose what should be roughly the best number of files, but how then do you check to see whether you've got it right for your data and workload?… Read more
It is likely that you'll want to add a database with TDS Encryption to your AlwaysOn Availability Group. If you do so you'll find that you can't use the SSMS wizard to do so. So, how do you achieve it? Read on...… Read more
If you are trouble-shooting an AlwaysOn Availability Group topology, a study of the wait statistics will give a pointer to many of the causes of problems. Although several wait types are documented, there is nothing like practical experiment to familiarize yourself with new wait stats, and Joe Sack demonstrates a way of testing the sort of waits generated by an availability group under various circumstances.… Read more
SQL Server AlwaysOn provides a high-availability and Disaster-recovery solution for SQL Server 2012. It makes use of existing SQL Server features, particularly Failover Clustering, and provides new capabilities such as availability groups. Warwick Rudd explains the basics and shows you how to implement it.… Read more
Fabiano continues his introduction to SQL Server's implementation of the window functions by giving a history of what got implemented and when, and explaining the concept of the 'Frame' in a window function, with plenty of examples.… Read more
