Blog

SQL Server Links

Find Missing Indexes in Stored Procedures – Michelle Ufford, aka SQLFool on Twitter, shows how to set up a T-SQL script that will regularly monitor your server for any query plans in the cache that are missing indexes, and store that data in a table for later retrieval.  See, the dynamic management views (DMVs) that store this data don’t stick around forever, and it’s important to grab the data if it’s only available briefly.

Querying dm_exec_query_stats and dm_exec_cached_plans – Continuing with the theme from the above article, Elisabeth Redei writes about similar ways to get performance data from SQL Server without running a trace.

Best Practices for SQL Server on a SAN – Jimmy May talks about new resources from the Microsoft SQL Server Customer Advisory Team’s Mike Ruthruff.

SQL Server and Null Values Revisited – Aaron Alton explains when nulls make sense in tables.

The Original MySQL DBA

10 Things You Need to Know About MySQL Backups – “Does the backup use LOCK TABLES?”  What?  Are you serious?  There’s such a thing as a backup solution that locks all your tables while it runs?  After reading this list, all I can think of is McGyver – I bet he would have made a great MySQL DBA.  “I gotta back up this server, and all I’ve got is a coat hanger, two socks and a pound of bacon.  Let’s do this.”

T-SQL Challenge from Adam Machanic – Wanna win a full-blown MSDN subscription?  Got mad T-SQL skillz?  Adam’s running a contest that involves using a single T-SQL statement to concatenate multiple strings from AdventureWorks.  I love reading the comments and trying to reverse-engineer what the person is thinking about doing: for example, one of the commenters asked if indexes could be added.

SQL Server Object Ownership – K. Brian Kelley explains how this concept changes from SQL 2000 to 2005/2008 and gives in-depth scripts to walk through it.

When Index Seeks are Actually Index Scans – Gail Shaw explains that when you’re reading an execution plan, an index seek might still be rolling through all of the records in the index.  Don’t just dismiss “index seek” as everything being all good.

Cloud and Virtualization Links

Nothing especially interesting this week.

The Junk Drawer

Paying Down Your Technical Debt – I love this concept: as you’re building stuff, you’re amassing a technical debt with every shortcut you take.  It’s like a looming credit card debt, and sooner or later you have to pay it down or else it’s going to start costing you real money.  Performance costs money, plain and simple.

Fusion-io Solid State Drive Discussion – I mentioned the Fusion-io drive a while back because it looked like a neat technology – solid state storage via an PCI-Express card.  Their CTO David Flynn calls it a SAN in your hand (catchy) but I would note that SANs have a high level of redundancy, like multiple paths to the storage.  The Fusion-io drive is a single PCI-Express card in a single server, which makes it a very singular point of failure: if your box goes down, your data is offline.  That’s nothing like a SAN, where the data can be accessed from multiple servers (think clustering.)  I’m not saying the Fusion-io isn’t cool – it certainly looks cool – but it’s not a SAN in your hand.  Expect to see more of these types of solutions – OCZ just announced one for around $2k.

How FriendFeed uses MySQL to store schema-less data – when you’re desperate for performance, you start thinking farther and farther out of the box.  This is McGyver too, but in a cool way.

Three Kinds of Meetings – Seth Godin explains the three kinds of meetings: information, discussion, or permission.