Here are my choice of links for the past week.

• SQL Server:
  • Gail Shaw’s SQL Server Deadlocks by Example provides a good overview of deadlocks in SQL Server, with advice on how to detect and avoid them.
  • Thomas Kejser’s Clustered Indexes vs. Heaps analyses common table usage scenarios to determine whether using clustered indexes is a good option.
  • Keeping with the clustered index subject, Marcus Winand’s Unreasonable Defaults: Primary Key as Clustering Key provides a detailed analysis of what a clustered index is and how it affects other existing table indexes, leading to the (implied) question of whether setting a primary key as a clustered index is a good option at all.
  • Juergen Thomas’s New functionality in SQL Server 2014 – Part 2 – New Cardinality Estimation explains the role of cardinality estimation in query execution, addresses the changes in cardinalily estimation in SQL Server 2014 and provides some examples of how the changes affect query execution. An excellent read.
  • Paul White’s Cardinality Estimation for Multiple Predicates also addresses the subject of cardinality estimation, but covers the use of multiple predicates in a query. The article shows how the default behavior can be avoided through the use of trace flags. It also addresses the changes in cardinality estimation and the use of related trace flags in SQL Server 2014.
  • Thomas LaRock’s How to: restore the master database in SQL Server 2012 shows how the master database can be restored in a SQL Server 2012 instance.
  • Tim Wieman’s Scaling-out SQL Server disks and data files on Windows Azure Virtual Machines…a real-world example provides an example of scaling out disks and data files (in this case for TempDB) on an Azure VM. The article includes many useful reference links.
  • Hugo Kornelis’s Generating Test Data in TSQL addresses test data generation, in a situation where the data needs to follow a distribution and columns are not independent.
  • Brent Ozar’s How to Query the StackExchange Databases shows how the Stack Exchange databases can be accessed and queried, both through a browser or actually downloading the data to a local instance of SQL Server. If you ever need real data for query tuning, the article shows a way to get it.
  • Glen Berry’s SQL Server Diagnostic Information Queries for January 2014 includes the latest version of the author’s diagnostic information queries.

• Web Design and Development:
  • Jon Galloway’s ASP.NET – A last look back at 2013, looking ahead to 2014 is a good overview of what happened with ASP.NET during 2013 and what to expect in 2014, with links to many resources relevant for those who work with ASP.NET.
  • Shawn Wildermuth’s Why Should You Care About NodeJS? explains what .NET developers can learn from NodeJS and why they should have  a look at it and consider using it in some projects.
  • Steve Hansen’s HTML5: Myths and misconceptions provides a bit of history on HTML 5 and tries to debunk some of the rising myths about what it is and what it offers.
  • Jonathan Cutrell’s Web Design 2014: What to Watch Out For makes some predictions on what to expect on the field of web design, for 2014.
  • Pete Hodgson’s Keeping jQuery in Check proposes a segregated DOM to avoid the pitfalls of what the author describes as ‘jQuery soup’, an indiscriminate intermingling of $ references, AJax calls, application logic and business rules.

• Big Data / BI:
  • Josh Polsky and Yaniv Mor’s ETL – Is it Still Relevant? states that ETL is still very much relevant in big data scenarios and explains why. 
  • Merv Adrian’s AAA is Not Enough Security in the Big Data Era argues for the need of anonymization or deidentification in an era, where big data will be increasingly used for medical, commercial and security reasons.
  • Alexei Khalyako’s Expanding HDP Hadoop file system to Azure Blob Storage shows how to take advantage of the cheap cost and scalability of Azure Blob Storage, expanding available storage beyond the 16TB available in a HD Insight cluster.
  • Rob Kerr’s Submitting C# MapReduce jobs on Windows Azure HDInsight is a video showing how to create and execute C# MapReduce jobs on Azure’s HDInsight. 

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