I’ve been working on this and wanted to achieve max throughput before posting, but since I am stuck, thought I would post what I have to this point. I have 4 Fusion-IO cards including a duo in a 12 core (2.66 MHz/12 MB Cache, E5650 processors) with 96...

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Been very busy with a DoD project. I plan to add a post soon on how my SSD experience is going. I have now accumulated 7 PCIE Fusion SSD cards (3 SLC 160GB, 3 320GB MLC, 1 320 Duo SLC) as well as an additional...

In my last blog entry ( http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoftbob/archive/2010/11/06/the-potential-of-ssd-for-millions-of-iops-on-increasingly-larger-databases.aspx ), I shared the throughput numbers backing up from 2 Fusion-IO devices to a 4-spindle 15K SAS...

NOTE: There is an update to this article at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoftbob/archive/2010/11/08/pcie-ssd-update-optimizing-sql-backup-performance.aspx regarding the throughput I was able to achieve on my own configuration with the Fusion-io backup...

I’m back after being on leave for past several weeks in case you wonder why I haven’t posted. To quote Joy Gresham from the move ShadowLands “I wasn’t dead, I was just in America (fill-in-the-blank)” This was one of my favorite...

If you’re one of the dozen or so people who follow my blog, you’re aware that I’m using SSDs for my doctoral research project involving simulations to find solutions to complex data correlation problems. I finally have started to get...

My main customer utilizes SSIS for some SQL and Oracle integration requirements. One challenge they’ve had is timeouts from the Oracle side. We’ve tried everything to eliminate the issue in terms of extending timeout values within SSIS, but...

Here’s a quick tip if you don’t want to try to use random and figure out seed, etc.  If you’ve got a lot of columns in a table, it is pretty likely that the checksum for all those data values are going to be random across your primary keys. I recently...

For today, I recycle bits from a couple of excellent authors in the SQL community. The first script is for optimizing compression. I “borrowed” this from Paul Nielson, author of the SQL Bible. You can visit his SQL Server bible site at http://www.sqlserverbible...

If you’re like me, you like GUIs even for SQL Server, they make it easier to do things quickly without having to remember a lot of syntax.  But GUIs within Management Studio ultimately have to fire off TSQL to perform the changes.  And not knowing...

Been working with 2 PCIE Fusion cards testing out performance for my SQL Server simulation database. I also have a raid set of 3 Intel X25-E SSDs. This is a technology to take seriously. The folks at Fusion have been most helpful. I will be putting together...

After a long and painful process, I have finally achieved this.   Was it worth it, would I do it again?  Absolutely.  But please don’t call me Master Bob, Microsoft Bob is fine… I am doing quite a bit more work with my simulation database...

I apologize as I notice there are some inquiries related to code posted. I should probably set expectations about this, as I am not the typical Microsoft employee with a MSDN blog. Most of the other folks with MSDN blogs are in the product teams and blogging...

This weekend I played with partitioning.  I have a table with about 10 million rows spanning the last 6 years of stock history for AMEX, NYSE, Indexes, and NASDAQ.   I partitioned each year into a separate filegroup so that should make...

With SQL Server 2008, Microsoft re-architected SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) to no longer have an IIS dependency. It now relies directly on HTTP.SYS and handles web protocols independently. This is a good thing, in a lot of respects (see http:...

If you’ve been following my blog, you may remember an article I did extolling the virtues of indexed views - http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoftbob/archive/2009/05/13/sql-data-warehousing-tip-2-indexed-views.aspx .  I stand behind that and have found...

Some of you are all set to flame me just because of my title. I know because a couple of years back, I would have probably been one of the first to say “NO!”, when anybody started talking about query hints. But, like everything else in this world, they...

While we're on the topic of .NET coding, here's another technique.  If you thought my last post was short, here's an even shorter one... Ever wanted to make sure you returned an error message with all of the inner exceptions?  I know I've wasted...

Time for a break from SQL stuff for a little .NET.  Have you ever wanted to use the integer value of an ENUM instead of the actual Enum Value?  For example, here is an enum I created to map datetime formats. public enum FileDatePrecision {...

I confess  lack of depth in SQL Analysis Services (SSAS).  I've read quite a bit about the capabilities including data mining, and played with a couple of the wizards, but just haven't had time to immerse deeply into end-to-end scenarios. ...

As part of my research work, I generate thousands of simulations on an almost daily basis for various scenarios.  One of my scenarios involves determining strategies for selecting the most profitable short and long stock entry/exit positions. ...

Coming back from the Sci-Fi world of AI, etc to some real world scenarios...  Earlier I posted a generic stored procedure that automatically unpivots data so that columns become rows.  Today, I provide the inverse capability, although not truly...

For today, here’s a simple trick.  Ever need to get a list of all the calendar dates for a period?  This is very simple using a user defined function with a table.   Below is a simple version.  I have a more complex version I...

Technorati Tags: SQL Server , Tips If you’re like me and spend a lot of time in SQL Query Analyzer, querying data directly, you may find the column display format tedious for tables with lots of columns or where you are only working with a couple of entries...

Last time we discussed the use of a period table to consolidate analysis into smaller segments of data.  This can be done for an analytical application where the details are not needed or as part of a rollup.  Today, we’re going to look at how...