Gavin Payne

Architects and Architectures

2013-03-12T18:55:45Z

In the last few months I’ve been presenting a new session at community events that’s had a positive reception that I’m pleasantly surprised at. It’s had several titles, but currently its “How to be a more successful architect” and I originally created it as an overview of my Microsoft Certified Architect journey, although I’ve taken it on a different course since then. Hopefully of interest to everyone The session is hopefully interesting to everyone in the IT industry, not just a specific type of...(read more)

Virtualisation limitations still exist, even in 2013

2013-02-06T23:43:46Z

While advances in technology are seemingly continuous, and the limitations of yesterday’s systems are now the minimum requirements of tomorrow’s, care should still be taken to make sure every capability scales as much as you need it to. Virtualisation of yesterday In the last few years, the capabilities of virtualisation have increased dramatically. It was only a few years ago that virtual servers were limited to 4 vCPUs, had only average performance storage, and never had enough memory...(read more)

Columnstore Indexes Overview

2013-01-02T10:10:48Z

In December 2012, I presented about “Accelerating the Data Warehouse Using xVelocity Columnstore Indexes” at a SQLSanta event in London. My presentation’s purpose, and demos, were to show how this type of database engine index, that’s new in SQL Server 2012, significantly improves the performance of data warehouse style queries. Columnstore indexes, and their complimenting Batch-Mode Query Processing feature, are used transparently by SQL Server once they’re created so the benefit for SQL Server...(read more)

What’s coming up

2012-12-06T22:47:00Z

In the last couple of months my community activities list has had things leave it and new things join it, so I thought share my future plans, and promote some of the events I’m supporting. Microsoft Certified Architect : SQL Server – Giving back Preparing for my MCA Board was the hardest, yet in hindsight the most rewarding and interesting, thing I’ve ever done. The subjects it covers still interest me to the extent that I’m now contributing to the MCA programme itself, allowing the next people through...(read more)

Coeo sessions at SQLSaturday Cambridge

2012-09-12T11:52:03Z

This weekend saw the UK’s first SQLSaturday organised by Mark Broadbent, and held in Cambridge, that was without doubt a huge success. Coeo were lucky to have four of us present a staggering five sessions on the day; so thank you to the SQLSaturday team for selecting our sessions, and to those who chose to attend them. I’ve put a link to the presentation slides for all of our sessions below: I want to be a better architect - Gavin Payne Slides here NUMA internals of SQL Server 2012 – Gavin Payne...(read more)

This is Columnstore – Part 1

2012-07-22T23:23:45Z

This weekend I finally spent some time getting up to speed on the new xVelocity Columnstore index feature in SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition. This is part one of three blog articles about my initial experiences of them, but more interestingly, a quick look under the hood at how they work. What are columnstore indexes? In summary, the Columnstore indexes feature is both a type of non-clustered index AND a new query processing mode built into the SQL Server 2012 database engine. Their aim is to...(read more)

Efficient, partial, point-in-time database restores

2012-06-03T17:52:42Z

This article is about a situation that many of us could describe the theoretical approach to solving, but then struggle to understand why SQL Server wasn’t following that theoretical approach when you tried it for real. Earlier this week, I had a client ask about the best way to perform: a partial database restore, 1 of 1300 filegroups; to a specific point in time; using a differential backup, and therefore; without restoring each transaction log backup taken since the full backup. The last point...(read more)

Read Committed Snapshot Isolation– Two Considerations

2012-05-11T20:27:20Z

The Read Committed Snapshot database option in SQL Server, known perhaps more accurately as Read Committed Snapshot Isolation or RCSI, can be enabled to help readers from blocking writers and writers from blocking readers. However, enabling it can cause two issues with the tempdb database which are often overlooked. One can slow down queries, the other can cause queries to fail . Overview of RCSI Enabling the option changes the behaviour of the default SQL Server isolation level, read...(read more)

Knowing when you’re ready to attempt to become an MCM of SQL Server

2012-05-01T09:09:23Z

Since I became a “Microsoft Certified Master of SQL Server” I’ve had lots of people asking me how I prepared, how I knew I was ready to take the exams and what they were like. At the SQLBits certification session recently I was invited on to the panel to answer questions about the “modern” MCM program. This article hopes to answer some of the questions people ask yet they will always have very personal answers. What feels difficult for me might be slightly less difficult for you yet I might make...(read more)

What to do when the solution will never be in front of you

2012-04-25T21:46:05Z

Sometimes you have a requirement which you don’t have a tool in your toolbox for. When that happens the solution may not be to just get another tool and add it to your existing toolbox, it might be you have to use an entirely new type of toolbox with tools you’ve never used before in it. Doing that maybe a bold architectural decision but is often where the biggest performance or functionality gains can come from. Recently, in the SQL Server space there have been some technologies become...(read more)