Cloud in a Box Private Clouds appear to be gaining popularity for businesses of all sizes. One reason is that the cost of hardware has continued to decline, and vendors are designing pre-configured cloud systems with all the necessary engineering built in. No longer does the SMB require as much expertise to setup a private cloud as before because it […]

The Cloud and Big Data How do you manage big data in the public Cloud? You have two problems when using a public cloud with your big data; 1) Import/Export and 2) Mining. The cost for cloud services vary by vendor. Some charge for space used, processing resources and external network utilization. With big data, all three are factors determining […]

ACID Transactions What is an ACID Transaction? This is a typical question when interviewing for a DBA position. Interestingly, not all data storage engines support ACID transactions, especially most of the newer NoSQL tools. In a short, non-technical definition, an ACID transaction is one where you are assured that modifications you make to data are fully completed. For a more […]

Use Azure TableBatchOperation to Increase Performance Azure Table Storage is one of Microsoft’s solutions for storing objects in the Cloud. From the client perspective it works with objects, making your code easier to understand, by performing the heavy lifting of serialization for you to allow transport over the network. Objects are stored in a hierarchical structure as follows: StorageEndPoint Table […]

Dot Net Basics We Take for Granted The USING clause in C# can be a great timesaver. As most know, enclosing the creation of an object in a USING Statement causes the dispose method to be called on that object automatically without any effort on the part of the coder. So, any object supporting IDisposable is a candidate to be […]

The Right Way What is the right way to architect or develop or implement software? You’ll probably have as many answers as the number of professionals you ask. In fact, I know my answer constantly changes with my experience and the situation. So, should we seek “The Right Way?” If so, what are the questions we must ask ourselves if […]

Pair Programming Pair programming is a software development technique where two programmers work on the same task together. Most people think this is a waste of resources resulting in less delivered code. I agree that the concept is counter-intuitive, and the practice does not fit all occasions. Here are some reasons I find it can actually increase production beyond that […]

Oracle on Azure Have you taken a look at the available features now hosted on Windows Azure. The list is continuing to grow beyond the Microsoft only product line. Recently I received an announcement by email stating that Microsoft Azure is now hosting in a preview mode three major components of the Oracle stack. You can use Azure only, or […]

SQL Server 2014 In Memory Tables For the first time in six years I am excited about the next release of SQL Server. The core engine of SQL Server has had little improvement since SQL Server 2008 for doing OLTP. There have been some TSQL enhancements, and performance tuning; but, most of the energy seems to have been around the […]

Is Software Holding You Back? Today I want to write about something that is probably common sense. But it is on my mind, so I thought I would just get it out. The question I have is, “how often does software hold us back?” I have been using a number of products from a number of vendors and have been […]