Featured Article(s)
MySQL Basic SQL Part II The Simple SELECT
SQL is one of those lost arts. We often just throw something together without considering the ramifications to our applications and the database engine that must crunch through the tables to get at the information we require. Bear with me. This series will introduce more difficult SQL as time goes on. Just read each and every part, try the SQL and lets become the next SQL experts.
Be Careful Out There…
I’ve been hearing more and more about people that, faced with budget challenges and the requirement to "do more with less," are resorting to data extracts to both Access and Excel.
From these extracts, they’re using this information to allow users to dig around in information, build reports, allow ad-hoc queries and things along those lines. In a few cases, these are full extracts of a table (or tables) or view.
Yikes!
If you’re doing this, PLEASE proceed with caution. Think very carefully about the information your extracting. This is a compliance, or simply best practices, nightmare and problem just waiting to happen. Once a user extracts information from your system, they can copy, modify, distribute and generally goof up the information in the extract. I’ve talked before about chain of evidence-type checks. Where did data come from, who changed it and what were those changes based on in terms of fact information?
If you’re facing this type of situation, document the sources of information you’re extracting. Explain to users what the information is, where it comes from and how it could be used. Also document what they plan to do with it, what changes they may be making and know whether they plan to further distribute their work if they do modify it. While you won’t stop things from being abused, you will at least have documentation of how the information will be used and/or changed. It’s about a half-step forward from "nothing."
SelectViews Special
People have been asking what a vConference session is like. Today we’re releasing a sample session for the show this week so you can see exactly what it’s like. Today’s show is Buck Woody of Microsoft going through the essentials of Disaster Recovery – Database Recovery 101 – Find out about what makes your database tick and how this impacts recovery. Learn about recovery models and more. (Special vConference Session)
[Watch the show here]
Featured White Paper(s)
SQL Server Fragmentation Explained
This technical white paper will help you understand SQL Server fragmentation and the performance benefits you can gain on yo… (read more)
Best Practices in Index Maintenance – Fighting the Silent Performance Killers
Index fragmentation significantly degrades database performance. Unfortunately, neither the SQL Server native tools or in-hou… (read more)