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26 June 2007 13:51

To cluster of not

Tony's blogged about the use of heaps http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tonyrogerson/archive/2007/06/24/row-fragmentation-hopscotch-heap-v-clustered-and-io-cost.aspx . Whilst this highlights data on a page being out of sequence and thus yoyoing when you scan...
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04 April 2007 23:28

ProClarity 6.3 available on MSDN downloads

I've just logged into MSDN downloads and was very shocked to see ProClarity available for download. Both server and desktop versions are available. You can read more on Proclarity here http://www.proclarity.com/ if (socialButtons!=null) { socialButtons...
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12 November 2006 23:52

Two Free MSDN Team Suite Subscriptions

If you want to win one of two MSDN Team Suite Subscriptions worth in excess of £5,000 then its simple. Start contributing the SQL Blog sitte sqlblogcasts.com and you'll be in with a chance. Its free to join up and start blogging so whats stopping you...
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05 October 2006 15:29

Native Command Substitution is not supported

In response to a recent support incident we raised we got a response about use of detours in SQL Server. A detour is a means by which you can change what SQL Server does. This is used by Litespeed to change native backup commands into Litespeed backup...
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11 July 2006 20:15

Is IDENT_CURRENT the next @@identity

I've just finished watching the webcast on building a wareshouse according to Kimball principles. In it they generate an audit record by inserting a record and then using IDENT_CURRENT to get the identity value. A few months ago some one on the forums...
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23 June 2006 10:11

A large slice of humble pie please Mr Thomson

In my presentation last night I went through a process by which you can create Raw files so that you can append to them in a for each loop as there is no "Create once for the package" setting for a Raw file. I knew Jamie had covered this in his blog but...
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25 May 2006 17:33

Are you allowed to be sizeist in the database world

Well even if your not, one of my real bug bears is fat tables. These aren't large tables they are fat tables, wide ones with lots of columns or large data types. The reason this gets is is people develop databases with 10s of rows in them. Then end up...
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16 May 2006 08:15

Performance of MAX trick

Jamie posted a comment to by post about the trick for finding a maximum value in a set of results. Stating that the CASE statement solution was significantly faster. Being a synic I didn't believe him so tried it out for myself The following are the two...
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12 March 2006 17:39

Running Sums the sequel part x

If you've been following the trillogy (Adams posts 1 , 2 Jamies post ) of attempts at getting a running sum out of TSQL you will appreciate that there are many ways to solve a problem. Following my previous post on partitions and aggregates I thought...
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02 March 2006 06:51

Increase the performance of updates by 1000

Following on from my previous post on varchar(max) for which the consensus was that one shouldn't use varchar(max) everywhere, I have found this great function that allows you to update a varchar(max) column with great performance gain. The function is...
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14 February 2006 15:05

Microsoft.com SQL Server architecture

I was sent a link recently on the Microsoft.com SQL Aerver Architecture , this is really interesting and follows on from a interview I read last year with Jim Gray on channel9 that talked about terraserver using a white box solution rather than clustering...
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13 February 2006 08:55

Indirect configuration files in SSIS

Configuring packages based on configuration files is great, whats more you can have the location of configuration file obtain from an environment variable. One word of warning is that, if you change your configuration between indirect and direct the configuration...
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27 January 2006 06:00

Performance tuning with subqueries and parameters

Patrick Wright has recently posted on a performance issue he was asked to look into. The issue in question involved an SP that was taking a huge amount of time, compared to what it should have been. This is one of those real life scenarios where its not...
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21 November 2005 19:40

Free training in advanced query performance (almost)

There are a number of sites that offer free training or dedicated training however few offer the level of interaction you get at the UK Usergroup. Itzik Ben-Gan is holding an advanced query performance http://www.sqlserverfaq.com/?eid=62 . These events...
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18 November 2005 15:19

when is varchar(max) not a varchar(max)

I was looking into a question raised at the lauanch about the best way to pass large sets of values to sql. Currently the person is restricted by the 8000 character limit for a varchar in SQL 2000. A number of options where mentioned including bulk inserting...
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