Editorials

A Look at the Data Growth Coming with SQL Server

Upcoming Learning Events
– 12/10/2009 – SQL Server Security Virtual Workshop [More Info/Register]
– 1/2010 – DBASchool Class – 3 days – [More Info/Register]
(Limited seats remain)

Featured Article(s)
Understanding the Power of SQL SELECT in Oracle—Part I
The SELECT statement is the most common statement used in extracting data from the oracle database. Part I of the tutorial examines how the select statement can be used to extract data, create views or sort information from an oracle database.

Featured White Paper(s)
Meeting Compliance Objectives in SharePoint
In recent years, the business and political landscape has seen incredible change with regard to the rules and regulations gov… (read more)

Webcast: 7 SQL Server development practices more evil than cursors
Cursors do indeed cause performance issues, but cursors are easy to correct. This session addresses the problem of cursors and then uncovers 7 common practices that are more costly than cursors Based on several years of consulting specializing in optimizing third-party ISV databases, the list of worst practices range from critical database design blunders to indexing errors. Avoiding the blunders on this list will be the difference between a successful database project and a failure. Not to leave you in the dark, this session will contrast every evil practice with a best practice to solve the problem. Presented by: Paul Nielsen

> Register Now
> Live date: 12/9/2009 at 12:00 Pacific

A Look at the Data Growth Coming with SQL Server…
SharePoint 2010 will be releasing at the same time as SQL Server 2008 R2 and Office 2010. Makes sense, they are so very intertwined and integrated that you’d really have to update the whole thing or nothing. No problem there.

One of the features areas in SharePoint 2010 is social media – though not full-on intranet Facebook type applications, the first steps are there. You’ll be able to tag items in the system, browse other items that are related based on those keywords, etc. Integration with many social features is also coming, and, without getting into specific features, you can quickly see that the lessons learned from the likes of Facebook and even Twitter, with capacity challenges and the like, may be coming soon to a server near you.

If you experience growth and utilization of the new social-type features along the same lines of some of these social sites, clearly you’ll be facing data storage growth, traffic, application utilization and performance challenges that come along with it. To say you simply won’t allow it is probably wishful thinking, so the time is ripe to learn the implications of these features with your systems. (The SharePoint 2010 site and information is here.)

The issue with social features, and an issue we, as DBAs and database professionals have likely not had to deal with directly, is that of explosive growth. This is the kind of thing that, if it takes off on your systems, can cause challenges almost literally over night.

How will you plan for and address it? What are your plans? Drop me a note – will you be planning for the possible massive data explosion associated with the social features, or will you take a wait-and-see approach?

Drop me a note, let me know here.

Featured Script
Script SQL Database DDL
A tool which scripts out SQL Server 2000/2005 database objects to individual files in a manner which mimics Microsoft’s Visua… (read more)