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

Tuning Oracle Queries with an Optimizer Trace 09/24/2018

Sometimes the obvious isn't when it comes to query performance; that's when event 10053 can help.  Read on to see how to use this event to tune query performance.

Modern Data Warehouse Design Pattern – Part II 09/20/2018

Join Anoop Kumar as he discusses two modern design patterns to handle Advanced Analytics on big data, and Real time analytics.

Db2 Application Performance Enhancements 09/17/2018

Db2 Version 12 includes many new and improved features specifically aimed at improving application performance. As today's development teams are driven to implement applications at a faster pace, the DBMS must support the ability to retrieve data quickly, while at the same time reducing overall resource usage. Here is a detailed look at some modern transactional data processing issues and how Db2 meets these challenges.

Oracle's LOCAL_TEMP_TABLESPACE 09/13/2018

Oracle has provided a new setting, local_temp_tablespace, for RAC installations.  Read on to see what this does and how it can end up being set incorrectly.

Exploring Oracle's MySQL Cloud Service 09/10/2018

Oracle MySQL Cloud Service is a MySQL database service that provides an enterprise ready MySQL cloud service. To better help you evaluate Oracle MySQL Cloud Service, Rob Gravelle gives you a rundown on how to get up and running with the free account option.

Azure SQL Database High Availability 09/06/2018

Site-wide or region-wide disasters, while undoubtedly more impactful, happen considerably less frequently than downtime resulting from scheduled maintenance events or isolated hardware and software faults. This article provides an overview of the high availability features of Azure SQL Database that mitigate risks affecting services within an individual Azure datacenter, rather than an entire Azure region.

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.

Oracle's ddl_lock_timeout in Version 12.2.0.1 08/27/2018

With some ports of Oracle 12.2, attempting to set ddl_lock_timeout at the session level can throw an ORA-00068.  Read on to see one way this can be fixed.

Modern Data Warehouse Design Pattern – Part I 08/20/2018

The modern data warehouse design helps in building a hub for all types of data to initiate integrated and transformative solutions. To achieve these goals and to support modern designs, Microsoft has introduced a set of fully managed, cloud-based services that not only support modern data warehouse design patterns but also provide the advantages of inbuilt scalability, high availability, good performance, and flexibility.

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.

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.

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.