Kalen Delaney

Geek City: Growing Rows with Snapshot Isolation

2011-11-20T00:43:00Z

I just finished a wonderful week in Stockholm, teaching a class for Cornerstone Education. We had 19 SQL Server enthusiasts, all eager to find out everything they could about SQL Server Internals. One questions came up on Thursday that I wasn’t sure of the answer to. I jokingly told the student who asked it to consider it a homework exercise, but then I was so interested in the answer, I try to figure it out myself Thursday evening. In this post, I’ll tell you what I did to try to answer the question....(read more)

Did You Know? Query Options Setting in SSMS

2011-10-20T00:09:00Z

Hi folks I’m back from an amazing week at PASS and an awesome reception for SQL Server MVP Deep Dives Volume 2. I’m starting to plan and write my next book on SQL Server 2012 Internals so blogging will kept to a minimum, not that I’ve had a lot of time to blog lately. However, while working on the final quiz for my Concurrency class through SSWUG , I noticed something peculiar about the Query Options | Advanced dialog in Management Studio. You have the option of choosing a default ISOLATION LEVEL...(read more)

Did You Know? I’ll be teaching my Internals Class online!

2011-09-07T20:27:00Z

In my most recent commentary for SQL Server Magazine, online here: http://www.sqlmag.com/article/training-and-certification2/sql-server-training-options-140429 , I talked about different options for making training content available online. As an addendum to that, I’d like to mention that one of my training partners (Benchmark Learning in Minneapolis) has decided to offer my complete 5-day deep dives Internals class online, in early November. We’re doing it as a split week class also, so your brain...(read more)

Geek City: Where are LOBs stored?

2011-06-26T21:27:00Z

When researching a question from one of the students in my class last week, I was reading the documentation for CREATE TABLE about storing LOB columns at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174979.aspx . For this discussion LOB columns includes text, image, ntext, xml and the MAX columns when they are over 8000 bytes and stored outside the regular data row. I knew that SQL Server gives us the capability of storing LOB columns in a separate filegroup with the TEXTIMAGE_ON clause, but I was surprised...(read more)

Geek City: What gets logged for SELECT INTO operations?

2011-03-15T19:41:00Z

Last week, I wrote about logging for index rebuild operations. I wanted to publish the result of that testing as soon as I could, because that dealt with a specific question I was trying to answer. However, I actually started out my testing by looking at the logging that was done for a different operation, and ended up generating some new questions for myself. Before I started testing the index rebuilds, I thought I would just get warmed up by observing the logging for SELECT INTO. I thought I knew...(read more)

Geek City: What gets logged for index rebuild operations?

2011-03-08T18:54:00Z

This blog post was inspired by a question from a future student. Someone who was already booked for my SQL Server Internals class in June asked for some information on a current problem he was having with transaction log writes causing excessive wait times during index rebuild operations when run in ONLINE mode. He wanted to know if switching to BULK_LOGGED recovery could help. I knew the difference between ALTER INDEX in FULL vs BULK_LOGGED recovery when doing normal OFFLINE rebuilds, but I wasn't...(read more)

Geek City: Preparing for the SQL Server Master Exam

2011-03-03T14:40:00Z

I was amazed at the results when I just did a search of SQLBlog, and realized no one had really blogged here about the changes to the Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) program. Greg Low described the MCM program when he decided to pursue the MCM at the end of 2008, but two years later, at the end of 2010, Microsoft completely changed the requirements. Microsoft published the new requirements here . The three week intensive course is no longer required, but that doesn't mean you can just buy an exam...(read more)

Did You Know: Where's the Best Place to Get Started?

2011-02-17T07:34:00Z

Have you ever wondered how to start learning about a specific SQL Server topic? Or how to advise someone who asks "How do I get started?" Redgate, and SQL Server Central, have launched a new site to answer that question. SQL Server Stairways are a series of tutorials designed to take you from zero knowledge of a particular SQL Server topic, to a level of practical understanding that will allow you to start using that feature in a production environment. Not all the tutorials are finished, but new...(read more)

Did You Know: I'm going back to Boston!

2011-01-26T04:12:00Z

After spending 5 months in Boston last summer and fall, I'm going back again, to teach my 5-day SQL Server Internals and Query Tuning class for Boston SQL Training. Last time I taught my course there, we had a completely full class with a waiting list. So I'm going to offer the course again! The class will be delivered April 11- 15 but early bird registration ends next Tuesday, February 1st. I'm very excited to go back, and thankful to Adam Machanic of Boston SQL Training for this opportunity. You...(read more)

Geek City: Ordered Seeks and Scans

2011-01-21T23:28:00Z

I got a couple of really great questions during my SSWUG Workshop this morning , as I was discussing seeks and scans, and since the answers to the two questions are very related, I decided to address both of them in more detail in this blog post. Most people think about a seek operation as retrieving just one or a few rows, and a scan as accessing the entire table or index leaf level. And that usually is what I mean when I am just describing SQL Server behavior. But there is also the possibility...(read more)

Did You Know? My PASS Demos and Social Networking

2010-11-15T22:30:00Z

My PASS demos are now available on my website for my Precon Session on SQL Server Concurrency: Locking and Blocking and Row Versions, Oh My! and for my Spotlight Session on Seeking SQL Server Secrets. You can download both sets of scripts from www.SQLServerInternals.com/conferences Also, I set up a FaceBook fan page a few weeks ago, for SQL Server technical information, news, tips and tricks... the Facebook page name is SQL Server Internals, and the direct URL is http://www.facebook.com/SQLInternals...(read more)

Did You Know: SQL Geeks for Good

2010-11-04T19:04:00Z

Are you going to PASS next week? We're not going to have anything to compete with the big release and book-signing for the SQL Server MVP Deep Dives book like we had last year, but there is something special you can do this year. A former student is collecting personal care items to take on a mission trip to Nicaragua. Here is his statement of purpose for the project: Corner of Love leads mission teams to villages in impoverished northern Nicaragua, providing life changing medicines, dental care,...(read more)

Geek City: Inside SQL Azure

2010-11-02T16:10:00Z

My new whitepaper has just been published! Inside SQL Azure http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/inside-sql-azure.aspx The paper examines the internals of the SQL Azure databases, and how they are managed in the Microsoft Data Centers, to provide you high availability and immediate scalability in a familiar SQL Server development environment. SQL Azure is changing so fast, I thought everything in here was going to be out of date before it saw the light of day. :-) Enjoy! ~Kale...(read more)

TSQL Tuesday #11:Rolling Back TRUNCATE TABLE

2010-10-12T20:02:00Z

“It ain't what people don't know that hurts them it's what they know that ain't so” -- commonly attributed to Mark Twain SQL Server has been around for a long time now, and people who learn one version well sometimes have monumental task when a new version comes out. They need to figure out what changed. The "What's New" documentation usually gives a good idea of the major new features, but sometimes when a more minor feature just change a bit, it's may get overlooked in all the hoopla of learning...(read more)

Did You Know? It's really easy to convey the wrong message when writing

2010-09-28T20:17:00Z

And it's also really easy to procrastinate. I meant to blog about a big misunderstanding right after last month's SQL Server Magazine UPDATE commentary appeared, but now I'm just finishing up this month's commentary and only now realized I forgot to write this blog post. In this commentary http://www.sqlmag.com/article/sql-server/Disseminating-SQL-Server-Information.aspx I talked about how difficult it is to find the information you might need, and how difficult it is for educators, or product support...(read more)