SQL Database Engine Blog
This is the blog of the engineering team managing and developing the Database Engine for SQL Server and Azure SQL Database
White Paper: Reducing Database Size by Using Vardecimal Storage Format
Hermann Daeubler and Sunil Agarwal have co-authored this white paper. Hermann is a Program Manager...
Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 05/29/2007
First TechEd of the year coming up!
TechEd US is in Orlando this year - see here for details and here to register.We're doing a bunch of...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 05/15/2007
Would you like to join the Storage Engine PM team?
We have some job openings on the Storage Engine Program Management team - if you're looking for a...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 05/12/2007
Naked Tour of Australia
ok - a little explanation is required.At the last MVP Summit here in Redmond, I met up with a bunch...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 05/06/2007
Quick list of VLDB maintenance best practices
One evening last week I sat down with Kimberly for 5 minutes to come up with a top-of-our heads list...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 04/30/2007
What's the difference between database version and database compatibility level?
I had a question this week from someone who'd heard me say at SQL Connections (paraphrasing)...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 04/26/2007
How having too many filegroups can affect recovery time
I was on a conference-call on Friday with a customer and we were discussing their plan to have...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 04/22/2007
Can you mix-n-match backup devices?
I was asked this question yesterday and didn't know the answer so thought it would be good for a...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 04/22/2007
And an example corrupt 2000 database to play with
As promised in my earlier post of an example corrupt 2005 database, here's one I've just created for...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 04/20/2007
How can you tell if an index is being used?
Whenever I’m discussing index maintenance, and specifically fragmentation, I always make a...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 04/20/2007
Example corrupt database to play with and some backup/restore things to try
I've been asked several times over the last few weeks for an example corrupt database to play with,...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 04/17/2007
How to avoid using shrink in SQL Server 2005?
Late night blog post to round out spring-break vacation... A number of customers I’ve spoken...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 04/16/2007
SP2 Maintenance Plan bugs fixed
From the tools team here in Redmond:We recently posted updates to address an issue in two SP2...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 04/12/2007
VLDB Maintenance - quick addendum
So it seems that Microsoft's email system barfs when some people try to send email with 'survey' in....
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 04/10/2007
VLDB Maintenance Practices and Problems?
It’s survey time again. I’ll be doing lots around VLDB maintenance in the coming months...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 04/08/2007
SSWUGtv interview with Paul and Kimberly
While we were at the SQL Server Connections conference in Orlando last week, Kimberly Tripp and I...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 04/06/2007
How does your schema affect your shrink run-time?
For part two of my short series on data file shrinking, I want to look at how elements of your...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 03/29/2007
Where are all the whitepapers?
Frustration at Microsoft's seemingly haphazard organization of whitepapers finally won and Kimberly...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 03/28/2007
Turn AUTO_SHRINK off!!
This week's topic is data file shrinking. I've seen lots of mis-information in the last few weeks...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 03/28/2007
Easy way to create a corrupt database for testing
In previous posts I've explained how to use a hex editor to corrupt a database for testing and...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 03/22/2007
New whitepaper on Online Indexing Operations
A great new whitepaper has just been published on TechNet - Online Indexing Operation in SQL Server...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 03/15/2007
Can you INCLUDE columns of type TEXT, NTEXT, or IMAGE?
I was sent a question today that seems like it could be something that many people get confused...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 03/14/2007
How to create fake statistics for testing query plans
This is very cool - an undocumented option to UPDATE STATISTICS that allows you to fool the server...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 03/12/2007
More on Service Level Agreements...
My recent post on SLAs prompted some interest and comments from readers so this is a follow-up to...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 03/12/2007
Oh no – my backup is corrupt too! Help!
Funny how a bunch of people all seem to have the same problem at the same time. Maybe it’s...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 03/05/2007
Using Visual Studio’s Code Model objects for code base understanding
A bit of a diversion from the normal SQL Server posts. Recently I’ve found a very useful...
Author: Jerome Halmans Date: 03/02/2007
CHECKDB, User Groups and .NET Rocks!
A few things to cover with the first cup of coffee this morning before doing a meatier post or two...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 02/28/2007
SQL Server 2005 Best Practices Analyzer CTP released
Folks,The much-anticipated SQL Server 2005 Best Practices Analyzer has been released for on the...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 02/22/2007
TechEd interview video
Here's a video of Adam Machanic interviewing me at TechEd in Boston last year - thanks to Chuck...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 02/16/2007
Wow - over 40 blogs from the SQL Product Team
Seeing the new blog from the doc team inspired me to ping the extended SQL team to see what active...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 02/14/2007
How to move databases using detach/attach functions?
Quickie post this morning. I was in a review of customer support cases yesterday lunchtime and...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 02/14/2007
How long does your CHECKDB take?
Following on from my post a couple of weeks ago...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 02/12/2007
Three upcoming events in March to learn about HA/DR and DB Maintenance
Things start early this year! I'm doing three events in March where I'll be speaking on HA/DR,...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 02/12/2007
CHECKDB (Part 8): Can repair fix everything?
I was teaching at a Microsoft-internal class last week and there was a discussion on what...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 02/04/2007
CHECKDB (Part 7): How long will CHECKDB take to run?
This is a question I see every so often and it cropped up again this morning so I'll use it as the...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 01/24/2007
Fixing damaged pages using page restore or manual inserts
Here's an interesting scenario that cropped up today. You have a database on a RAID array that...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 01/17/2007
Read-Only filegroups and Locking
I recently saw a newsgroup post that sort of implied that accessing data residing on read-only...
Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 01/08/2007
Data row before and after vardecimal storage format
Paul Randal in one of his earlier BLOGs described DBCC Page paul-tells-alland the record layout. I...
Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 01/06/2007
Boundary conditions for enabling vardecimal storage format
Have you ever tried updating a variable length column and fail? Well, it can happen if the modified...
Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 01/04/2007
Vardecimal Storage Format and its implications on Backup/Recovery
Has any one tried restoring or attaching a SQL Server 2005 database on SQL Server 2000? You will...
Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 12/29/2006
More undocumented fun: DBCC IND, DBCC PAGE, and off-row columns
(Final blog post of the year for me. Its been a bit of a wild ride the last 6 months - 7 TechEds on...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 12/13/2006
Enabling vardecimal storage format
First, this feature is only available in EE and Dev SKU. Enabling vardecimal storage format on a...
Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 11/13/2006
How to give feedback on SQL Server 2005?
One of the sessions Don Vilen did last week at TechEd:Developers in Barcelona (that I helped with)...
Author: Paul Randal - MSFT Date: 11/13/2006
Estimating the space savings with vardecimal storage format
Before enabling Vardecimal storage format, you may want to know the potential reduction in the size...
Author: Sunil Agarwal Date: 11/12/2006