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

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!

IBM Db2 Statistical Functions for Analytics 11/27/2018

Until recently, business analytics against big data and the enterprise data warehouse had to come from sophisticated software packages. This was because many statistical functions such as medians and quartiles were not available in basic SQL, forcing the packages to retrieve large result sets and perform aggregations and statistics locally. Today, many database management systems have incorporated these functions into SQL, including IBM's flagship product, Db2.

A GUI Might Not Be An Oracle DBA's Best Friend 11/20/2018

Oracle DBAs should know how Oracle behaves and should also be able to address issues without the aid of a flashy graphical user interface (or GUI). Are you a DBAs who would be lost without applications interfaces to help you with tasks? 

Hybrid Histograms in Oracle 18 11/15/2018

iOracle version 12 introduced the hybrid histogram as a performance improvement. Learn about a change in Oracle 18 that can cause histograms to break. 

A Guide to MySQL Prepared Statements and Parameterized Queries 11/05/2018

A prepared statement, or parameterized query, is used to execute the same statement repeatedly in an extremely efficient manner. In today's article, Rob Gravelle demonstrates how to use prepared statements within a stored procedure as well as using a programming language.

Overview of Azure SQL Database Information Protection 11/01/2018

Information protection becomes one of the dominant factors that drive modern database design and implementation. This becomes particularly evident when operating in a cloud computing environment, with Azure SQL Database serving as one of the prime examples of this trend. Microsoft delivers relevant features by leveraging several different security-related Azure services. In this article, we will provide an overview of this functionality.

Oracle OEM Agent 13c and Perl 10/25/2018

Perl can sometimes 'misbehave' with the Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) agent for version 13c.  Read on to see what issues it can create and how to correct them.

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.