Dec 15

My links of the week – December 15, 2013

500px-Relational_Model.svgHere is my selection of the links from the past week.

  • Big Data / BI :
    • Doug Turnbull’s Codd’s Relational Vision – Has NoSQL Come Full Circle? is a very interesting article that goes back to the original Codd’s work on relational databases, analyzing Codd’s criticism of the database systems that existed at the time, to raise the question of whether we have come full circle. Codd’s original arguments that lead to his proposal ofthe relational database model, are used to warn about the risks of denormalization, while taking advantage of that very denormalization in NoSQL databases.
    • Software Engineering Radio’s Episode 199 is a podcast, featuring Michael Stonebraker, a leading MIT database reasearcher. The podcast covers multiple database related subjects of great interest, including “NewSQL” databases.
    • Andrew Burst’s Predicting Big Data’s 2014 presents a few predictions about what 2014 can bring to Big Data, from a set of companies working in the field.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading.

Dec 08

My links of the week – December 8, 2013

keys

Here is choice of links for this week.

  • SQL Server:
    • Phil Factor’s Primary Key Primer for SQL Server is an excellent primer on choosing primary keys for SQL Server databases. It also includes links to several related and relevant resources.
    • Brent Ozar’s The Secrets of TempDB is a very interesting video on TempDB, one of SQL Server’s system databases. The video covers multiple aspects related to TempDB, presenting its purpose, how SQL Server uses it, how it should be setup and how it can affect SQL Server performance. The post also includes a link to multiple valuable TempDB related resources.
    • Jez Schultz Borland’s Filtered Indexes vs. Table Partitioning explains some of differences between filtered indexes and table partitioning and suggests use cases for both. It also includes links to additional resources on both subjects.
    • Thomas LaRock’s Doing it Right: Performance Monitoring and Troubleshooting compares tracing and polling as strategies for collection performance metrics in terms of advantages, disadvantages and risks and advises a strategy that includes both, while stating his preference for polling for regular monitoring.
    • Brent Ozar’s How to Build a SQL Server Support Matrix presents his version of a SQL Server support matrix and, in a very interesting post, explains how it can be used and some of the advantages that it can bring about.
    • Glenn Berry’s General Database Server Build and Deployment Instructions provides a useful build checklist for setting up new SQL Server instances.
    • Jack Li’s How Simple Parameterization works addresses query parameterization, explaining how SQL Server versions since 2005 includes two modes of parameterization (simple and forced), how SQL Server behaves in each and how it can be determined whether a given query is being parameterized or not.
    • Karen Lopez’s 10 Tips for the Minimalist DBA presents a set of 10 tips about concerns and skills needed for anyone in a DBA role.
    • Bill Karwin’s How to Design Indexes, Really, is a very good presentation on index design that, although addressing MySQL indexes, can also be of valued for anyone designing indexes for  other database management systems.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading.