Featured Article(s)
Preparing to Install Failover Clusters
Before you set up failover clustering it is important to verify whether you have the minimum hardware and software checks in place. In this article we shall examine what "minimum hardware and software" requirement means.
In-Person, Outstanding Training Options
Looking to get up to speed with in-person, instructor-led activities that will make sure you’re prepared. From SQL Server fundamentals and advanced topics to Business Intelligence and even .NET topics, you’ve got to see this great schedule of upcoming, in-person classes. Get more information here – and check out the latest schedule from Solid Quality Learning.
Additional Feedback on "New" Database Technologies
Josh wrote with his thoughts on the whole idea of "tweaked" database systems for specific purposes: "It seems to me that the majority of these “alternate” database types (i.e. columnar databases) are being designed to meet the needs of applications who have found traditional relational databases lacking in some way. For example, the columnar database type seems to fit the reporting/BI model quite well; columnar databases can compress and search large chunks of similar data quickly. However, they are slower to update than a standard relational database would be.
Businesses have realized that there are few all encompassing solutions out there to their IT needs. This is true in the data center, in software development, and in personnel. From a database perspective, architects are having to open their minds to new solutions to meet the business needs being handed to them. We need OLTP, relational databases to support our ordering applications; however, we need a data warehouse to see the history of our orders over long periods of time. There are businesses that have to use databases to do things like spatial or temporal data storage alongside more traditional database types. And all of this has to happen at increasingly high levels of performance and availability. So having a few hundred SQL Servers in your enterprise may no longer cut the mustard.
Meanwhile, in order to make software development faster, and ensure consistency, we are building things like abstraction (or proxy) layers, so that developers can think in terms of “data objects” instead of database schemas. Microsoft is jumping head on in to that boat with the next version of Visual Studio. So, we’ll have to learn how to manage different data stores, using different technologies, in order to deliver the performance and flexibility that we need.
So, it’s likely that in the future, we will see different types of databases, supporting different types of applications in a given enterprise. The important thing for DBAs and developers to remember is that you should be able to broaden your skill set to understand and support these database types, so that you aren’t eventually relegated to handling only the relational database. For many of us, this means going outside the realm of our chosen vendor (Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, etc.) and learning about other database technologies. We’ve got to stay sharp, in order for companies to see our value and continue paying us the “big bucks”."
Featured White Paper(s)
Technical Overview of Automating the Upsizing of Microsoft Access Databases to SQL Server
2SQL is designed to remove the software programming and database administration component of Microsoft Access to SQL Server u… (read more)
The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Service Bus, Q2 2006
Cape Clear retains its leading position in Forrester’s latest review of the standalone ESB market. The vendor is one of the p… (read more)
Business Rule Mining: Get a Detailed Analysis of your COBOL Applications
LogicMiner can help your organization reduce maintenance costs and prepare for ongoing modernization of legacy applications. … (read more)