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

Adaptive Query Processing in SQL Server 05/21/2018

Adaptive query processing is the latest query processing feature introduced in the SQL Server database engine, available in SQL Server (starting with SQL Server 2017 (14.x)) and Azure SQL Database. Read on to learn more.

Oracle's Conventional Export (exp) May Cause Problems 05/14/2018

There may be some still using conventional export (exp); with Oracle 12 that may not be a good idea.  Read on to see why.

5 More Features of IBM Db2 12 for z/OS 05/10/2018

IBM's Db2 Version 12 for z/OS has many new features that focus on performance and security measures, particularly for mobile and cloud applications. Advances in cryptographic hardware and query accelerator technologies facilitate rapid development of customer-facing applications and the embedding of big data queries in operational systems.

Monitor Your MySQL, MariaDB and Percona Servers with Navicat Monitor 05/10/2018

The latest player to enter the database monitoring arena is Navicat. Rob Gravelle provides one of the first looks at Navicat Monitor's many features and describes how to configure it, with an emphasis on Windows 10.

Introduction to Azure Cosmos DB Security 05/07/2018

Deployment of cloud-based technologies introduces a wide range of challenges; however, few of them are scrutinized to the same extent as security. When analyzing security-related challenges, it is important to note that they encompass several distinct but interrelated technologies, including authentication and authorization, network isolation, as well as data integrity and confidentiality. In this article, we will explore how these concepts apply to the Azure Cosmos DB offering.

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.

Pseudonymization Of Personal Data With Oracle 04/30/2018

The GDPR offers pseudonymization as a protection technique for personal data.  Read on to see what pseudonymization is and why it can be difficult to implement.

Kafka Integration with HDInsight 04/23/2018

Microsoft HDInsight is the cloud service that deploys and provisions Hadoop clusters on the Azure cloud. It's a completely managed, open source analytics service to support enterprise needs and supports a wide variety of scenarios with the help of open source frameworks like Hadoop, Storm, Spark, R Server and Hive. Read on to learn more.

5 New Features for Db2 12 for z/OS 04/19/2018

IBM presents version 12 of its flagship database product Db2 as, "The ultimate enterprise database for business-critical transactions and analytics". What does this mean? In this slideshow we dive into the most critical changes in this version of Db2, including improvements for application enablement, DBA functions, on-line transaction performance and query performance.

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?

How to Send a TDE Encrypted Backup to Someone Outside Your Organization 03/01/2018

Once you enable your database to be encrypted with Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), the physical database files, and the database backups are encrypted.  If your database and database backup are encrypted, then how can you send the encrypted backup to a person outside your organization?

What is the State of My Transparent Data Encrypted Database? 03/01/2018

When using Transparent Data Encryption, you might wonder “What is the state of my transparent data encrypted database?” Read on to learn the many different states that a transparent data encrypted database might go through.

How to Enable Transparent Data Encryption 02/01/2018

By default, SQL Server does not encrypt data in a SQL Server database in an encrypted format. When SQL Server 2008 was introduced, Microsoft implemented Transparent Data Encryption (TDE). When TDE is enabled on a database SQL Server will encrypt the database as data is written to the disk. Read on to learn more...

How to Move a TDE Encryption Key to Another SQL Server Instance 02/01/2018

If you have a database backup of a Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) enabled database, the database backup will contain encrypted data. Because the database backup contains encrypted data you can’t just restore it to any instance. You can only restore the database backup to an instance that contains the same certificate used to originally encrypt the database.

Has Your Database Been Backed up in the Last 24 Hours? 01/02/2018

As a DBA your #1 responsibility is to make sure that each of your SQL Server databases are backed up. This tip provides a couple of TSQL scripts that will identify the last backup of each database.

How to Change the Default Backup Directory 01/02/2018

When you install a SQL Server instance you have the opportunity to identify the default location for your instance database backups. Overtime you might decide you want to change the default location for database backups. This tip shows you two different ways to change the default location for your database backups.