I recently presented at SQL Saturday 184 in North Haven and was able to listen to Grant Fritchey’s present “Query Tuning in the Clouds”. What I got out of the presentation was the sense all your tuning skills could be used to optimize a Windows Azure SQL database. I knew Windows Azure SQL Databases have been around for a couple of years but never had the time or need to research them. With a possible data center consolidation in the future, I was wondering if my company could leverage a…
Tag: CREATE DATABASE
Database Design with SSMS
Most of the articles that I presented so far for database development have been centered around the exact Microsoft T-SQL syntax to perform a certain operation. At the University of Rhode Island, I learnt how to program in Pascal before typing in my first ANSI SQL statement. In short, I will always be some type of developer in my heart. However, many people do not come from a computer science and math background. The SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) has menus and dialog boxes to achieve many of the same…
Basic Training – Tables
Today, I continuing my series of talks on fundamental SQL Server database topics. I am a proud United States Army Reservist (USAR) Veteran. Just like boot camp I went to so long ago, I am going nick name the series BASIC TRAINING. The most basic part of a database is a TABLE which consists of COLUMNS. A important decision during the initial design is to choose the data types that will capture the information you want in the least amount of space. I did a good job covering the various…
Database Files & Objects – Part 1
I am currently reading Kalen Delany and others book on SQL Server 2008 System internals. If you have not read this book from cover to cover, you should. It has a wealth of knowledge about database engine details. To demonstrate key ideas from the book, I am going to expand on the [MATH] database that contains PRIME numbers. The trial division algorithm inside this database uses a brute force method for calculating prime numbers. This article will focus on files and objects that can be viewed through the system views,…
Upgrading Older Databases
A new version of SQL Server is released every few years. This year was no different with the launch of SQL Server 2012 in March. It is important to migrate older, unsupported databases to a current version. I am going to examine 3 different techniques to upgrade the [PUBS] sample database from SQL Server 2000 to 2008 R2. The first two techniques require the database files to be copied from the older server to the new one. Use the ALTER DATABASE command to kick off the users and set the…
Database Files – Part 3
DATABASE SNAPSHOTS were added to the SQL Server product in the 2005 version. They are great for saving a version of the database before major data changes happen and perfect for rolling back the changes if they are not successful. While books online suggest other uses, I think this one is the best. Please see the limitations of snapshots before creating one. I am going to explain how to create a database snapshot, how to revert back to a snapshot after corrupted occurs, and how to drop a database snapshot.…
Database Files – Part 2
The most basic Microsoft SQL Server database is composed of two operating system files: a primary data file and a transaction log file. If possible, the data and log files should be on different physical disks. Today, I am going to be re-creating the [WILDLIFE] database using this simple design in preparation for talking about MOVING and COPYING database files. The key CREATE DATABASE, CREATE TABLE and CREATE INDEX statements are below. The complete script which catalogs ANIMAL names is enclosed as well as today’s new examples. If you have…
Database Files – Part 1
A Microsoft SQL Server database is composed of at least two operating system files: a primary data file and a transaction log file. I am going to be talking about how to define databases with multiple files tonight. There are three types of operating system files. PRIMARY data file is the starting point of the database and is a pointer to any other data files that are allocated. A extension of .mdf is used to identify these files. This data file can contains system tables and user defined objects as…
Crafting Databases – Part 1
The CREATE DATABASE SQL statement is part of the Data Definition Language (DML) defined by Codd and is used define (CREATE), modify (ALTER) or remove (DROP) databases along with there associated files. Before I talk about crafting a database, I want to classify SQL statements by four known groups. Data Definition Language (DDL) statements are SQL statements that support the definition or declaration of database objects. CREATE ALTER DROP Data Manipulation Language (DML) is a vocabulary used to add, modify, query, or remove data from a SQL Server database. SELECT…