Microsoft SQL Server Support Blog : SQL Whitepapers

WHITEPAPER - Online Indexing Operations in SQL Server 2005

sqlblog — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 05:41:00 GMT

I wanted to post a quick blog about a new whitepaper from Microsoft.

Introduced in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition, the online index feature provides a powerful way to perform maintenance operations such as rebuilding or creating indexes in a production system without sacrificing DML concurrency. Users are not blocked from querying and updating the underlying table during the index operation.

This white paper is targeted to database administrators who want to use the online index feature of SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition to increase server availability in their production environment and need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of using this feature.

You can read about it here.

Posted By: Sanchan Saxena

WHITEPAPER - SQL Server 2005 Upgrade Technical Reference Guide

sqlblog — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 03:14:00 GMT

If you haven’t read this whitepaper, read it now.

This is a comprehensive upgrade guide that details all aspects of planning for and implementing an upgrade from your SQL 7.0/2000 to SQL 2005.

In this 360 page whitepaper, you will learn about:

Supported upgrade paths
Planning your upgrade to SQL 2005, both in-place and side-by-side
Backwards compatibility considerations
Upgrade tools like Upgrade Advisor
Strategies for minimizing upgrade downtime
Upgrading failover cluster installations
Log shipping upgrade considerations and planning
Upgrading replication topologies
Special considerations for very large databases
Security considerations
Upgrading Full text catalogs
Reporting Services upgrade considerations and methods
DTS to SSIS upgrade

A must read if you plan to have a smooth upgrade to SQL 2005. Read it here.

Happy reading!

POSTED BY : Sanchan Saxena

WHITEPAPER – Working with Tempdb in SQL 2005

sqlblog — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 06:18:00 GMT

Tempdb has undergone a number of changes in SQL Server 2005.

Planning for tempdb deployment, configuring it for best throughput and continuously monitoring usage are critical for ensuring higher performance for your server.

In this whitepaper, you will learn about:

Enhancements in tempdb in SQL 2005
Identifying space requirements for your tempdb
Monitoring tempdb space usage on your server
Best practices for configuring and maintaining tempdb
Troubleshooting performance issues related to tempdb

You can download this article from here.

Happy reading.

POSTED BY : Sanchan Saxena

WHITEPAPER – Physical Database Storage Design

sqlblog — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 20:17:00 GMT

This whitepaper helps database architects and administrators configure Microsoft SQL Server 2005 systems for optimal I/O performance and space utilization.

In this whitepaper, you will learn about:

Internals of SQL Server physical design storage
Reliability and performance requirements for the database system.
Deciding upon the hardware to suit the above requirements
Best practice recommendations for configuring SQL Server to take advantage of the above
Tracking and monitoring performance on an ongoing basis

Strongly recommended for anybody interested in designing efficient database systems. Read it here.

Cheers!

POSTED BY : Sanchan Saxena

WHITEPAPER - SQL Server I/O Basics

sqlblog — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 03:10:00 GMT

Ever wondered how SQL Server manages I/O to your disk system? Seen errors like 823, 824 and wondered what they mean and how to resolve them?

Bob Dorr, SQL Server Senior Escalation Engineer has published two great whitepapers describing the internals of SQL Server I/O.

In the 2 part series, you will learn about:

Internals of SQL Server I/O operations – concepts like Write-Ahead logging protocol, Scatter-Gather, Read-Ahead et al are explained
Common I/O related errors – meaning of errors like 823, 824 etc., their cause and how to avoid them
Hardware configuration pitfalls to watch – understanding of stale reads, stale writes, disk caching and their impact on SQL Server data integrity
Tools – Microsoft tools to use to test your hardware capabilities to avoid common pitfalls
Enhancements in SQL 2005 – the second chapter focuses more on SQL 2005 enhancements like Checksum, page-level restore etc.

Armed with this knowledge, you will be able to make an informed decision about the hardware to buy, make the right configuration choices and maintain it effectively to avoid common pitfalls.

A must read!

POSTED BY : Sanchan Saxena

WHITEPAPER - Statistics Used by the Query Optimizer in Microsoft SQL Server 2005

sqlblog — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 23:13:00 GMT

SQL Server collects and maintains statistical information about indexes and column data stored in the database.

SQL Server query optimizer relies on these statistics to choose the most efficient plan for retrieving or updating data. If these statistics are not up-to-date, performance of your queries could be adversely affected.

This whitepaper provides great insights into the world of statistics and how they are used by SQL Server 2005.

You will learn:

What are statistics and how they are used?
How SQL Server implements statistics?
What’s new for Statistics in SQL 2005?
Creating and maintaining statistics
Best practices of implementing statistics

You can download this whitepaper from here.

Happy reading!

POSTED BY : Sanchan Saxena

WHITEPAPER - Diagnose and Correct Errors 17883, 17884, 17887, and 17888

sqlblog — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 07:41:00 GMT

Bob Dorr, Microsoft SQL Server Senior Escalation Engineer, is one of the most respected engineers in our team. He recently worked on publishing a great whitepaper which describes the common causes and troubleshooting techniques for 17883, 17884, 17887...(read more)

WHITEPAPER - Failover Clustering for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Analysis Services

sqlblog — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 13:51:00 GMT

One of our colleagues, Dave Whitney, recently worked at publishing a whitepaper which covers the nuances of setting up a failover cluster of SQL 2005 and Analysis Service 2005. We highly recommend that you download it to learn about the best practices...(read more)