Database Management & Programming News, Articles & Tutorials for Database Administrators

Generate Dynamic MySQL Multi-row INSERT Statements 01/21/2019

Discover how to generate a multiple-row insert statement dynamically using the programming language of your choice.

Handling Disaster Recovery When Using Oracle Managed Files 01/16/2019

Standby databases are used in most, if not all, Data Recovery configurations, and init.ora files and control file creation scripts are usually generated on the primary. Read on to see why, when using Oracle Managed Files, they need to be created on the standby.

HTAP - Hybrid Transaction and Analytical Processing 01/10/2019

The IT enterprise has grown, databases are bigger, companies have more product lines, more services, more customers and more transactions. Business analysts used to be satisfied with subsets of only certain data elements for their queries, and now they want it all. Now they want more....

Overview of Azure SQL Database Performance Monitoring 01/08/2019

Transitioning to the Platform-as-a-Service model typically implies relinquishing certain degree of control over your computing environment. One of the primary concerns related to this transition is diminished level of transparency providing insights into performance of cloud-resident workloads. Fortunately, with Azure SQL Database, you have a wide range of options that address this concern, allowing you to identify and remediate overwhelming majority of performance-related issues.

Customizing the Default Azure Data Studio Dashboards 01/03/2019

Explore the Azure Data Studio dashboards and see how to customize one of these dashboards to include a new widget.

Choosing Between Oracle's Bitmap and Function-based Indexes 12/26/2018

Oracle provides two ways to create an index that can reliably be used with nulls; a bitmap index and a function-based index. In this article, you will learn when each is applicable and see them in action!

Optimize MySQL Inserts Using Batch Processing 12/20/2018

It's become a challenge to whittle down the speed of database transactions to the real-time requirements of modern applications. Rob Gravelle presents suggestions for achieving better INSERT speeds.

Big Data: Health Checking Your System 12/18/2018

As big data solutions grow in size and complexity, concerns can rise about future performance. One way to assess the potential effects is to measure your big data application’s health.

Improvements in Oracle's Join Elimination 12/13/2018

Occasionally a join using primary key columns in a query can be eliminated because of the data involved.  In Oracle 12.2 and later, multi-column primary keys can be used to do this; however, there are cases where the join elimination is not complete . In this article, you'll see an example that illustrates these points.

Introduction to Azure SQL Database Hyperscale 12/10/2018

Since its inception, Azure SQL Database offering has been evolving in order to accommodate a wide range of needs of its customers. This has resulted in two separate deployment models and pricing models, each with distinct tiers of service, representing unique performance and functionality characteristics. Azure SQL Database Hyperscale is the latest manifestation of this trend, targeting scenarios where the storage requirements exceed the current database size limit of 4 TB. In this article, you will learn about its architecture and primary benefits.

New Preview of SQL Server Management Studio Available for Download 12/06/2018

On September 24^th Microsoft released the first Community Technical Preview for SQL Server 2019, which was CTP2.0. At the same time Microsoft pushed out a new preview for SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) known as version 18. Now is the time to download this new preview!

SQL Server 2019 Community Technical Preview (CTP) 2.1 is Available Now 12/03/2018

Microsoft announced the release or CTP 2.1 for SQL Server 2019. This is the second CTP released for SQL Server 2019, and it has lots of new exciting features, like " UDF inlining". Read on to find out more!

How Big is Your Transaction Log? 10/01/2018

If you are not managing the transaction log space used by a database, the transaction log might grow uncontrollably. With SQL Server 2017 there is a new dynamic management function (DMF) that exposes statistical information about a database transaction log. One of the things you can do with the information returned from this DMF is to determine how full a database transaction log file is.

SQL Server 2019 is Here 10/01/2018

On Monday, Sep 24, 2018, at the Ignite 2018 conference, Microsoft announced the first public preview of SQL Server 2019 (community technical preview (CTP) release of SQL Server 2.0).This new release of SQL Server is packed with many new features to improve performance, integrate your increasing volumes of corporate data, beef up security, and more. 

Line Numbers in SQL Server Management Studio 09/04/2018

Have ever tried to debug a chunk of TSQL code (like a stored procedure) and found yourself trying to figure out which TSQL statement is at a particular line number?  By default, SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) doesn’t display numbers.  But that is only the default, you can change it.

Displaying and Removing Unprintable Hexadecimal Characters from SQL Server Data 09/04/2018

There are times when you might need to look at your SQL Server data in hexadecimal format. Occasionally some string data will contain unprintable characters, which can cause downstream problems, if not detected and removed. Read on to learn how to display and remove unprintable hexadecimal characters from SQL Server data.

How to Resize tempdb 08/02/2018

When you are setting up a new SQL Server machine you need to determine how big you should make tempdb. To make sure you size tempdb appropriately you should monitor the tempdb space usage. If there are autogrowth events occurring after you have recycled SQL Server than you might want to increase the size of your tempdb data files. If tempdb never uses most of the tempdb space, then you might want to consider decreasing the size of tempdb.

How to Remove Transparent Data Encryption From a Database 08/02/2018

There may be a time when you want to turn off transparent data encryption on one of your TDE enabled databases. In this tip, Greg Larsen shows you how simple it is to remove Transparent Data Encryption.

Placing a Mark in SQL Server's Transaction Log for Fall Back 07/02/2018

How many times have you had a programmer come to you and say they want you (the DBA) to restore their database to sometime prior to when they accidentally corrupted it? If you are doing FULL transaction logging you can do a point in time recovery to restore the database to just prior to when the corruption occurred. But in order to do that you need to know exactly when the programmer corrupted the data, which in a lot of cases is not known down to the second.

Using SQL Server's Default Trace to Identify Autogrow Events in tempdb 07/02/2018

We all know that you should try to size tempdb appropriately, so it doesn’t need to autogrow shortly after starting up SQL Server. It isn’t always easy to do this. Therefore, when you first implement a new server and/or add new databases you should monitor the autogrowth events on tempdb. By monitoring the autogrowth events you can easily determine if you have sized tempdb appropriately.