DBTA: The Shape of Database Licensing Costs to Come

One fall semester many years ago, I was a university freshman.  Actually, I was anything but "fresh." I was dumb enough to think that 8 a.m. was a wonderful time to attend Economics 101. After staying up until the wee hours most every night, the "dismal science" took on more than one meaning as I set my clock just early enough to get to class on time.  Along with 30 other very naïve classmates, I staggered into class and did my bleary-eyed best to focus on the lessons at hand.  There were lots of Greek compound words and lots of graphs. I learned, for example, that the word economics … [Read more...]

DBTA: Microsoft’s Trajectory for SQL Server Becomes Clear with PowerPivot

I was once asked what I thought Microsoft's overall product trajectory for SQL Server was, in light of Oracle's rather obvious trajectory of acquiring multiple application vendors who will, in turn, deploy more and more of their applications to the Oracle database platform.  To be honest, I had a little difficulty perceiving a clear and concise strategy statement for the sort of work going on in Redmond.  I could see a lot of great features being developed.  And I knew the SQL Server development team had developed a lot of new "plumbing" with each new release - features like Service Broker and … [Read more...]

Video: SQL Server Memory Troubleshooting

Need to troubleshoot SQL Server 2005 memory settings? Not sure where to look to measure SQL 2000 memory pressure? Kevin lays out your options in today's podcast. You can view this video in higher quality or your favorite portable formats at: http://sqlserverpedia.com/blog/sql-se... Video published December 24, 2008. … [Read more...]

And the Winners are…

The winners were named last week in our contest for bloggers on SQLServerPedia.  Lots of great bloggers and great articles for you to read. A complete list of the winners is here: Thanks to the thousands who participated! Follow me on Twitter! … [Read more...]

Video: Worth the Wait Why SQL Server 2008 is Great

Join Kevin Kline, SQL Server MVP and SQL Server Technology Strategist for Quest Software and Brent Ozar, SQL Server Domain Expert for Quest Software as they introduce the top ten features and capabilities in SQL Server 2008 that they find to be the most exciting and valuable. Originally Posted on YoutTube November 12, 2008. Follow me on Twitter! … [Read more...]

DBTA: What’s the Fuss about Data Deduplication?

Listen to a group of database professionals talk for awhile and someone will eventually bring up the topic of data deduplication. Data deduplication is a means  to eliminate redundant data, either through hardware or software technologies.  To illustrate, imagine you've drafted a new project plan and sent it to five teammates asking for input.  That single file has now been reproduced, in identical bits and bytes, on a total of six computers. If everyone's email inbox is backed up every night, that's another six copies backed up on the email backup server.  Through data deduplication … [Read more...]

TN Summit 2010 – Surviving the Data Avalanche

Here's the link to my revamped presentation on Surviving the Data Avalanche The Abstract for this presentation is here. The slides for this presentation are here. … [Read more...]

DBTA: Security as an Afterthought

If you've read the IT press at all these days, you know that SQL Injection (SI) attacks are very common and can be devastatingly effective. In fact, SI attacks-equally easy to execute against Oracle, MySQL, IBM DB2, or Microsoft SQL Server-are among the most common hacks on the Internet today. If a web application runs a relational database on the backend, it can be subject to an SI attack, which ironically, is among the easiest web hacks to prevent. [READ MORE] … [Read more...]

Video: SQL Performance Optimization

Gain insight into best practices for SQL Server optimization and ways to alleviate many root causes that can impact performance of your SQL Server database. Kevin also will discuss how to manage for planned and unplanned changes, speed time to implementation of your applications and ensure that your databases are running as they should. You will learn how to: * Identify the root cause of bottlenecks that hinder performance of your SQL Server environment * Diagnose and fix T-SQL errors in development before code goes into production * Learn new best practices for project planning and … [Read more...]

DBTA: The Big Keep Getting Bigger

In this season of recession and financial meltdowns, a common question seems to be, "How big is ‘too big to fail'?" Titans of the financial industry made big bets with lots of risk and, when they didn't pan out, American society overall has to pay the price.  But, that aside, the very scale of our financial system, by just about every metric, has reached amazing heights, be that number of financial transactions per second, number of traders, number of funds traded, amount of money changing hands—you name it. [READ MORE] … [Read more...]