I have talked a lot about using a sharded database structure as a method to extend the performance and/or the capacity of a database. Sharding does not come without additional cost. Today I want to look at some of the things contributing to additional cost. If you use database sharding that requires additional instances of your database engine. Those additional […]

I have talked a lot about using a sharded database structure as a method to extend the performance and/or the capacity of a database. Sharding does not come without additional cost. Today I want to look at some of the things contributing to additional cost. If you use database sharding that requires additional instances of your database engine. Those additional […]

Is your database too large to fit within the limits of SQL Azure? That may be true. But with the use of Federations in SQL Azure, you can have massive flexibility through sharding, built directly in the SQL Azure platform itself. In an Azure federation, you shard your data into multiple databases, distributing records to one instance based on a […]

In computer software, authorization is an area that is continuing to morph. As I demonstrated yesterday, by defining horizontal and vertical partitioning in a database, most engines have some form of authorization for basic activities. This methodology was especially useful when there were fewer layers in an application, and the layers were closely bound. A 1990s application written using a […]

After reading my editorial about separating concerns of authorization and execution of application logic, Peter observes a similar need within a relational database. He writes: I have a small custom made CMS application. In this I use stored procedures to which I pass the current user and in which I join web page content tables with user access right tables […]

Security is often a key component to a computer system. It is often separated into two components: 1) Authentication – am I who I say I am?; and 2) What am I allowed to do once authenticated? From an application perspective, once I am authenticated we check the roles in which I am a member. Then in our code, for […]

Today I would like to consider the concept of Many to Many relationships as they are implemented in Entity Framework. First let’s start with defining a Many to Many relationship with an example of a school which has students, teachers and courses. A student may have 1 to many courses. A course may have one or more students. Each course […]

What sport best describes your IT processes? Perhaps it looks like a Nascar race. Lots of wrecks, periods of slowing down, and exciting sprints when everything is working well. Things break down, everything is re-aligned, and racing begins again. Perhaps you’re more like a marathon. Everyone is moving right along…probably faster than the average human can perform at their top […]

When tuning a database environment for performance, Jim has found contradicting advice for configuring SQL Server for parallel performance. Jim writes: The question that plagues me is what to do about parallelism in an OLTP environment. I know two eminent SQL Server experts that take polar opposite views on the issue. The one expert says that the "Cost Threshold for […]

When should you start tuning a database query? I ask this question as a follow-on to my editorial yesterday, where I recommend tuning your database first, then look into tuning your queries. Tuning your database may help multiple queries perform better. In a complex query based on a highly normalized database it is not uncommon to require joins to many […]