Over 1000 XEvents in SQL Server 2016 CTP2. Here are the new ones.
Extended events has firmly established itself as the premier diagnostic feature in SQL Server and SQL Server 2016 brings along more events to correspond to
Extended events has firmly established itself as the premier diagnostic feature in SQL Server and SQL Server 2016 brings along more events to correspond to
The security announcements around Azure SQL Database keep coming. Auditing was implemented a few months ago, and today it was followed by a preview of
Yesterday’s blog post about Azure SQL Database V12 mentioned that one of the features I was particularly interested in seeing/testing were the spatial features. Interestingly,
In general, I usually hate “me too” announcement blog posts. Over the years, I’ve considered it less than useful to simply repeat “Product XXX released
A few months ago, I embarked on a project to learn more about data mining, machine learning and, as a prerequisite, statistics. I was tired
I’ve been experimenting with Power Query and the rest of the Power BI suite in Excel (desktop edition) since it was originally released. But, like
Today, two new service offerings for the Azure platform were introduced, DocumentDB and Azure Search. These are exciting in themselves and worth a look-see but,
In a previous blog entry, I mentioned changes in SQL Azure Database’s new tiers. Another one, that I think is indirectly related to the new
One of the things that make Azure SQL Database difficult to keep track of is that details of some database behaviors can change, usually without
UPDATE: Last month (Sept 2015), Extended Events (not just the metadata that I wrote about) are officially available in Azure SQL Database!! For more information,
And now, for something completely different. Hadoop. I’ve been playing with everything I can get my hands on (and can find time for) with Hadoop
This post contains miscellaneous information about the current/future state of Azure SQL Database (AST). You know I couldn’t write just one more blog post when
In this post I’ll address perhaps the most important of all the announcements, performance levels. The 6 new ASD tiers provide different levels of performance
This post is about a new SQL Azure Database feature called a “Business Continuity Feature”, called “Disaster recovery/geo-replication”. This feature was announced last week as
Note: Well that was quick. I’ve updated this blog entry (same day) to reflect clarifications provided by a member of the Azure SQL Database team.
This blog post is especially dedicated to those who attended my SQLIntersection post-conference talk on WASD just over one week ago. The announcements were made
There’s a set of performance counters for the new In-Memory OLTP in SQL Server 2014. You might have overlooked them because they’re not with the
The latest feature to make an appearance in Windows Azure SQL Database (actually it’s still a preview program) is the Premium Database. Physically, when you
In mid-April, April 13-16 to be exact, the spring installment of SQL Intersection comes to Orlando. I’ll actually be there a little earlier and leave
This March, I’ll be presenting a 2-day seminar as part of AddSkills Expertseminarium series in Stockholm on “Performance and new developer features in SQL Server
I’m gearing up for my first SQLskills Immersion Event of the year, Immersion Event for Developers (IEDEV) in Tampa on Feb 17-21. This one is
The speed increase from memory-optimized tables in SQL Server 2014 is nice, but I thought, to get the most bang for your buck for really
I’ve been doing some investigation of the new cardinality estimator in SQL Server 2014. I’ve always thought the best way to see how the estimation
I was looking through some in-memory OLTP DMVs in SQL Server 2014 and came across these in the DMV sys.dm_xtp_system_memory_consumers: WRITE_SET_LOOKASIDE SCAN_SET_LOOKASIDE READ_SET_LOOKASIDE Thought it might be
I’d been doing some experimentation with memory-optimized table types in SQL Server 2014 and thought it was about time to write about it. Yesterday however,
Haven’t had time to blog much lately. Finding out strange and interesting things about SQL Server 2014 to present at some seminars and conferences next
So I was going through the features in SQL Server 2014, seeing how and where they fit into the canon of SQL Server’s T-SQL. I’m
I’d always wondered why they didn’t make the “ImplyingPermissions” function (code is part of the books online) part of the product. I originally thought it
This post is a continuation of my previous posts on columnstore indexes in SQL Server 2014 CTP1 and query plans. The test bed is the
This post is a continuation of my previous post about SQL Server 2014 Columnstore and Query Plans. I’ll take a look at how the new
Today I thought I’d try out some of the new, highly-touted columnstore improvements in SQL Server 2014. First off, to figure out what’s new I used
According to the whitepaper “Mission-Critical Performance and Scale with SQL Server and Windows Server” there’s a new cardinality estimator in SQL Server 2014. The whitepaper
Every new version of SQL Server includes new or expanded features that effect query plans. Most (sometimes not all) of the query plan changes (and
It’s stated in SQL Server 2014 Books Online that “The following isolation levels are supported for transactions accessing memory-optimized tables: SNAPSHOT, REPEATABLE READ, and SERIALIZABLE”.
As you can probably tell by the last couple of blog postings, I’ve be doing a bit of experimenting with the SQL Server 2014 Hekaton
In reading the whitepaper about “High-Performance Concurrency Control Mechanisms for Main-Memory Databases”, I was intrigued by the discussion of speculative reads and transaction dependencies. It’s
In the last blog post, I tried out a simple example to show the difference between the three transaction isolation levels supported by memory-optimized tables.
I finished reading the Books Online and CTP1 whitepaper introduction to transactions and memory-optimized tables a couple of days ago. Although I know what the
Don’t get me wrong, there’s almost no one who enjoys a good SQL Profiler diagnostic trace more than I do. But, starting in the early
When investigating new features, I’m prone to use what I call the Rumpelstiltskin method, that is, I’m happier if I know where these features “live”
Among the new features in SQL Server 2014, the most compelling, at least from my point of view, is the in-memory tables and procedures known
I was about to add a new blog entry, (coming soon) and realized that it’s been *months* since I blogged last, I’ve been rather busy
The last time I spoke at the Portland SQL Server User Group was the first time I’d ever seen taken any questions on Windows Azure
Just to let you know. The Portland (Oregon) SQL Server User Group has invited me to speak at the meeting on Thursday, Jan 24 at
I’ve been trying out the new supported Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets this week and I’d have to say I’m impressed. I’ve only used the ones
I’m happy to announce that I’ll be in Stockholm Mar 12-13 as a speaker in AddSkills’ Expertseminarium program. I’ll be doing 2 days full of
In part 1 of this series, we tried a simple example from the Books Online without any SXI index at all, and an SXI with
About a month ago, I wrote a series of blog entries on the Selective XML Index introduced in SQL Server 2008 SP1. Just to summarize
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