Want to play around with the StackOverflow database export? Here's how to import the XML files into SQL Server, and some notes about the tables and data schema. Script to Import StackOverflow XML to SQL Server This T-SQL script will create six stored procedures: usp_ETL_Load_Badges usp_ETL_Load_Comments usp_ETL_Load_Posts usp_ETL_Load_Users usp_ETL_Load_Votes usp_ETL_Load_PostsTags (which isn't one of the StackOverflow tables - more on that ...
The first stage of mining is a dirty, ugly business. Miners don't emerge from tunnels bearing armfuls of shiny diamonds. They come out with filthy, misshapen rocks that might be something valuable - but might be worthless junk. There's no way ...
StackOverflow released a public dump of their database this morning. Jeff Atwood and the guys believe that if you, the community, are putting the work into this huge body of knowledge, then you should be able to have rights to use it. This is a great dataset to show off one of my favorite ...
Last week, I blogged about the basics of SQL Server index fragmentation: why it happens, how to fix it, and how often people are fixing it. I left you with a cliffhanger: it seemed that the frequency of defrag jobs didn't appear to affect fragmentation levels: Databases with no index defragmentation were an average of ...
The Microsoft SQL Server Data Mining team is looking for ways to help DBAs with data mining, and they came up with an interesting idea: data mine the DMVs to find interesting information. I'm going to start by data mining index fragmentation statistics, and I need your help. I’ve got a DMV query to gather ...
A few months back, Microsoft gave MVPs a few MSDN Ultimate subscriptions to pass on to community members, no strings attached. I quietly gave mine to a few deserving folks who I thought could be future MVPs, but Arnie Rowland (Blog – @ArnieRowland) had a better idea. Arnie’s Project Phoenix encourages developers to propose a [...]
Read More »A few months ago, I had The Idea. I wanted to conduct SQL Server training on a cruise ship. I emailed a few buddies and offered to start a company called SQLCruise with them, and out of three friends, only one could say yes. I don’t have anything against the two who said no. I [...]
Read More »Most SQL Server DBAs don’t even like MySQL, let alone NoSQL. They cringe when they hear people say things like, “I don’t need transactions” or “The data will eventually be consistent” or “Indexes will be supported in the next version.” SQL Server and Oracle people are constantly trying to out-feature each other, and the abject [...]
Read More »In August 2008, Lady Gaga released her premier album The Fame. This 13-track work produced several hit singles including Just Dance, Poker Face, and Paparazzi – but it also produced plenty of controversy. Her exaggerated use of fashion, musical cliches, and sex gave her plenty of media attention – both good and bad. If you’ve [...]
Read More »Pop quiz: should you be worried if your SQL Server’s page life expectancy is averaging 214? There’s only one correct answer: it depends.
Performance tuning is all about finding the RIGHT bottleneck, focusing on it, and fixing it to the application owner’s satisfaction. Learn what happens if you don’t do it right.
Read More »