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

High-Performance Data Encryption and Db2 08/16/2018

IBM’s Db2 Version 12 for z/OS was designed to synergize with new IBM z14 hardware, which includes several new and updated options for hardware-assisted data encryption and compression. These features can be used by the database management system to store and retrieve encrypted and compressed data transparently without application knowledge or intervention. Read on to learn more.

Oracle's Transparent Data Encryption 08/13/2018

Keeping data secure also means keeping it obscured should a breach occur.  Read on to see how Oracle's Transparent Data Encryption can keep that data from prying eyes.

The Best (and Worst) Cloud Services for MySQL 08/09/2018

Each and every day, new cloud-based database providers are cropping up to meet the demands of Big Data. Companies both large and small love database as a service (DBaaS) because it frees them from having to dedicate their own infrastructure towards data storage, while providing the ability to scale their databases (DBs) into ever-increasing capacities - all with minimal hassle. This slideshow focuses on services that cater - at least in part - to MySQL users.

Azure SQL Database Business Continuity Enhancements 08/06/2018

Marcin Policht provides an overview of a number of new features that facilitate Azure SQL Database business continuity.

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.

Oracle's 'cursor_sharing = force' May Not Behave as Expected 07/30/2018

The cursor_sharing=force setting is designed to substitute system-generated bind variables for literals, but there are cases where not all literals are replaced.  Read on to see when this can occur.

Steps to Migrate Oracle Database to Azure SQL Database 07/23/2018

Many organizations are looking at the prospect of a technology migration, where capabilities are moved to a new set of technologies, supporting and enabling the business of the future. Anoop Kumar lays out the steps that can be followed to migrate an on-premise Oracle database to the SQL Server cloud database, Azure SQL Database.

Big Data Analytics on Current Data 07/16/2018

IBM now provides an option to configure its Db2 version 12 for z/OS and complementary IBM Db2 Analytics Accelerator (IDAA) to permit concurrent transactional processing of operational data with analytics processing of data in the appliance. This new feature, zero-latency HTAP (hybrid transactional analytical processing) provides a patented replication process that propagates native Db2 table changes to the IDAA data store. This then allows BI queries to act on up-to-date data.

Oracle's ASCIISTR() and Unicode Characters 07/12/2018

Although documented, the ASCIISTR() function may return 'interesting' results depending on the characters translated.  Read on to see what problems this can cause and a possible fix.

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.

Databases with MAXSIZE Set 06/04/2018

When a database grows to the MAXSIZE the database will not grow anymore and if someone tries to add more rows they will get an error saying the database is full. Greg Larsen shows you how to find all database files that have their max_size set.

Indexes That Have Not Been Used but Are Being Updated 06/04/2018

We all know indexes are important for improving your query performance, but to store and maintain indexes SQL Server requires disk space and compute resources. If you have indexes that are not being used, they are costing you valuable resources and causing your update statements to run longer. Those updates run longer because they have to maintain those unused indexes. If your application is not using an index, then there is no value in having that index. Read on to learn more.

Tables Without Clustered Indexes 05/03/2018

Do all of your tables contain clustered indexes? Some say every table should have a clustered index. Greg Larsen shares a simple script to identify those tables in your database that don’t have a clustered index.

Why Are You Dropping and Recreating Your Indexes? 05/03/2018

Why are you dropping and recreating your indexes, when you could just disable and then rebuild them? By disabling an index, you have basically turned off the index, but have allowed SQL Server to retain the index definition in the database metadata. If you want the index back all you need to do is rebuild the index.

How to Programmatically Identify When Your SQL Server Was Last Started 04/02/2018

Greg Larsen shows you a quick trick to programmatically script a way to identify when SQL Server was last started.

How to Show the Execution Plan of a Running Query 04/02/2018

By looking at a query execution plan, you can determine which steps are used to resolve the query. But what if you just want to find out what the query plans are for only the queries that are currently running?