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

Data Masking in the World of GDPR 03/21/2019

Your production database environment stores personally identifiable information in an encrypted form, limits access to these fields and masks them when displayed. However, some types of data encryption create potential performance problems as well as security issues. Your data may be at risk unless you mask it effectively.

Trouble with Oracle's DBA_TABLESPACE_USAGE_METRICS For The UNDO Tablespace 03/18/2019

Changes in the way Oracle sets the flag value for the UNDO tablespace in version 12.x make the output from DBA_TABLESPACE_USAGE_METRICS either incomplete (12.1) or missing  (12.2).  Read on for more information.

Creating CRUD Stored Procedures in SQL 03/13/2019

Back to the basics: learn how to Create, Read, Update and Delete operations are pivotal for any database application. Plus, you’ll see how to use Stored Procedures to manipulate data on the database side instead of on the application side.

Shrinking SQL Server Backup Files and Speeding Up Backups 03/08/2019

With backup compression you can speed up our backups, while making your backups smaller.

When Will My SQL Server Online Resumable Index Rebuild or Create Operation Complete? 03/05/2019

Oracle's Automatic Memory Management and the SPFILE 02/28/2019

With Oracle's Automatic Memory Management the spfile is updated with some interesting settings.  Read on to see what the settings are and what they do.

Working with AUTO_INCREMENT Columns in MySQL 02/25/2019

Learn how to use AUTO_INCREMENT columns in MySQL, as well as explore a few unusual use cases.

Using Azure Resource Manager Templates To Provision Azure SQL Databases 02/21/2019

Azure provides a number of different methods that can be used in order to implement and configure its resources. Each of the methods differs to some extent in regard to functionality and intended use cases.

IBM Db2 Query Optimization Using AI 02/18/2019

IBM’s machine learning is being used to improve the performance of analytical queries as well as operational queries and their associated applications. This requires management attention, as you must verify that your business is prepared to consume these ML and AI conclusions. Learn more…

Oracle's Interesting Treatment of IN-LISTS 02/13/2019

Whether it's a bug or by design Oracle's 1000-element in-list restriction isn't always enforced.  Read on to see what conditions can bypass this limitation.

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.