Search results matching tags 'Performance', 'Administration', and 'Trends'

NOSQL- A Quick Overview

KKline — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 03:55:00 GMT

Several attendees at the SQLRally were asking about NoSQL ("Not Only SQL") and its benefits. This article gives a quick overview: HERE.

Also, two good resources have come out from my friend Guy Harrison. This piece on Cassandra, one of the most popular NoSQL databases, was published a while back in Database Trends and Applications Magazine. I also really liked these entries from Guy at TechRepublic and TechTarget. Guy also had the good fortune of having one of his articles published on GigaOm and then picked up in the New York Times Technology section.

The article, titled “Real World NoSQL: HBase at Trend Micro,” is the first in a five-part series Guy wrote, spotlighting NoSQL (non-relational) database deployments at five different companies. The other good learning experience for me was hearing about GigaOm for the first time. GigaOm, now on my reading list, is considered an influential and prestigious publication in the NoSQL realm.

Let me know what you think. Enjoy!

-Kev

~~~

Twitter at kekline

In-Memory Databases (IMDBs)

KKline — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:10:00 GMT

Moore's Law tells us that CPU's get a LOT faster over time. Unfortunately for the database professional, all of the secondary elements of our databases DO NOT get a lot faster over time. Overall, the main methods of storing data since the 1960's, magnetic tape and hard disks, have improved only in the single percentiles year over year. Even those of us who were never good at math can tell that the CPU is outpacing the other system components.

An Osborne Executive portable computer, from 1982, and an iPhone, released 2007. The Executive weighs 100 times as much, has nearly 500 times the volume, cost 10 times as much, and has a 100th the processing power of the iPhone.

Two recent developments are helping to change that equation. First, solid state drives (SSDs) are having a dramatic impact many IT scenarios. My friends, Brent Ozar and Paul Randall, have each written about SSDs here and here, respectively.

Second, database vendors are supporting relational database systems that run entirely in system RAM. If you'd like to learn more about in-memory databases (IMDB), read more in my new article in Data Management Magazine. As we look to the future, I expect to see a lot more of both technologies in the data center.

And give me your feedback here! Thanks,

-Kev

2009: The Year in List Form

KKline — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:53:00 GMT

Before I jump onto the Goals and Themeword meme started by my buddy, Thomas LaRock (blog | twitter), I decided I'd spend a few minutes looking back on both the year 2009. (From a personal standpoint, the 00's were my most difficult decade yet. Major problems of every stripe beset me on all sides and with alarming frequency throughout the decade. I was all "Good Riddance" and "Don't let the door hit y'ass on the way out, 2009!" as the ball dropped in Times Square.)

Rather than spend a lot of time cooking up my own top 10 lists, I reckoned (that's Southern for "thought", btw) I'd recap a few others top X lists that are in the ballpark of my own personal opinion. I couldn't resist putting together my own list at the end, which I'd love to hear your thoughts on. In addition, I want to hear about your Top 10 (or 5 or 3) for 2009!

Their Lists

Time Magazine's list of Top 10 of Everything 2009 was a pretty good recap for the year on big ol' cultural touch points like movies and music. I found at least one thing to agree with in each of their pop culture lists: movies - The Hurt Locker - check; TV shows - my personal favorite for its brilliant cohesive multiyear storyline and excellent character studies, Lost - check; album - I and Love and You by the Avett Brothers - check; books (sigh - if only I had more time) included the wonderful The Age of Wonders by Richard Holmes.

Lifehacker's Top 5 Hive Topics of 2009 is a very interesting list covering lots of topics and pointing out a lot of interesting tools that I hadn't encountered before. My personal favorite among them was the Top 5 Alternative File Copiers, since the Windows Explorer copy feature reminds me of hungrily awaiting my food in the microwave and just as the counter gets to the T-10 countdown, it goes back up to 30, then down to 8, then back up to 42, then down to 14.

I'm not sure if they meant to be funny but Digg's Top 10 Most Popular Stories of 2009 is hilarious, much in the same way that Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) and I were when we put on an unintentionally hilarious performance at the PASS 2009 Summit Quiz bowl. Go ahead - ask Colin Stasiuk (blog | twitter) what he thought of our performance...

Impressed by Our Quiz Bowl Performance?

Speaking of unintentionally funny, have you seen Yahoo's Top 10 Searches of 2009? Evidently, the median Internet user (at least from their metrics) is hormone-laden, teenage redneck with a thing for fast cars (Nascar), Hollywood hotties (Megan Fox), and an unassailable but secret love for Mormon-influenced Vampires (Twilight).

My List

I usually try to blog at least once per week and, when I can, even more. I still have this deep down urge to post lots of small blog posts of just a couple paragraphs. But for some reason, I always seem to come out with these big ol' epistles. Despite my verbosity, y'all still read what I write and for that I'm very thankful. Over the last year, these were my top ten blog posts according to your interest:

Best of the [SQL Server] Blogs and its sister post Great Blogs from the Microsoft SQL Server Teams, also my number one spam generators. Ever spammer on the planet seems to want their comment appended here.
Microsoft Resources Too Good Not to Share, which I can't honestly remember if they were any good or not. But I bet they were.
Are We There Yet, Mom? in which I flashback to my childhood road trip experiences when considering Microsoft's overall product strategy.
Does the Down Economy Have an Impact on Your Job, cuz it sure punched mine in the mouth.
Why Do I Keep Seeing This Mistake, in which I learn that "Hello World" type applications can lead to massive misunderstandings.
Microsoft [Corporate] Marketing Throws SQL Server Under the Bus. We can't get no respect, not even from corporate HQ.
Looking for Good DMV Database Admin Queries, where you can find just about every good DMV query ever written except those other really good ones that are posted here in the comments.
Old Performance Recommendations Die Hard, and when I saw "die hard" I don't mean like Bruce Willis.
Things You Know Now, a semi-successful meme I started where I asked participants to tells us about stuff they'd do differently if they knew it way back in the day.
Understanding SQLIOSim Output, because no one seems to fully understand this tool, including me.

I excluded a few posts that were numerically in the top ten because, well, they're my blog posts and I didn't want them in the top ten. So there! But those that I excluded were things like reposting an interview done by another blogger or maybe a product or book that I plugged for some reason or an other.

I hope you've enjoyed my blogging and found it valuable. Tomorrow, I'm jumping on the themeword and goals meme. In fact, I'm crashin' the party because none of my peeps called on me. [pout]

Be well!

-Kevin

Twitter @KEKline

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Sequels for SQL: Dec 17, 2009

KKline — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:46:00 GMT

In the Sequels for SQL series, I point you to sites where you can go beyond the nose-to-the-grindstone resources that we see every day as SQL Server professionals. (My favorite resource for pan-SQL Server pointers is Steve Jone's Database Weekly email newsletter.) These are the story that comes after and outside (the sequels) of our daily working lives (the other SQL). Let's broaden our horizons together. If you hit on an interesting but overlooked topic, I'd like to hear from you.

SQL Server: We live it. We love it.

When Jimmy May talks, I listen. Not just because he's a personal friend, but also because he knows what's what, if you'll pardon the expression. So when Jimmy says "I believe xPerf will fundamentally change the way I do my job", then I want to know what the heck this free xPerf management tool is and how I can best leverage it. Check out Jimmy's blog entry on xPerf here.

Devices & Gadgets: Usually making our lives better, sometimes not so much.

Ever wonder what's inside one of those tiny USB hard drives? No? Not even a little bit?!? When I started in IT, hard drives where as big as washing machines and cost $60,000 running at speeds in the 100's of RPMs. My how times have changed. Here's a fun hack of a USB hard drive - http://www.dansworkshop.com/electricity-and-electronics/usb-hard-drive-hack.htm.

Futurewatch: Important issues just over the horizon.

There are a lot of standard elements of society being rebranded as the "2.0" version of itself. The 2.0 moniker was first put forward by visionary Tim O'Reilly (blog | twitter), of the eponymous media company. Whenever you see the 2.0 moniker added to the end of something, most famously Web 2.0, then you know that it will include the characteristics of collaboration, interoperability, and user-centered designs. So, whereas the first go at the web in the mid- to late-1990's was about enabling information retrieval such as transforming printed catalogs into on-line catalogs, Web 2.0 enables all of its participants to comment on, review, rate, and otherwise participating with each other in the use of such a catalog. In the last FutureWatch blurb, I pointed out work on Grid 2.0, centered on efforts to update the USA's electricity grid. I'm going to do a much more detailed post in the near future about emerging 2.0 efforts, but one to point out now is Gov 2.0. Under this broad set of initiatives, governments from the lowest to highest levels of responsibility are opening up their public databases for consumption by the public. An example of Gov 2.0 in action comes with the President's SAVE Award, in which the public is invited to vote on their pick for the best money saving tip put forward by federal government workers. Read all about this year's SAVE Award here.

Humor: I haz da funny.

Weird products in Japan have their own name - chindogu. Most of these are crackpot inventions that everyone knows will never see the light of day, such as these these featured here. However, some of these products DO get marketed and, more amazingly, purchased. Check out the product reviews of this totally bizarro chindogu here at Overstock.com.

Professional Development: Because there are two words in "database professional".

There are mountains of great websites with tips on how to be a better speaker. Some day, I'll write a long blog post about my favorite sites for learning how to improve your oration. But if you're in a hurry, and who isn't these days, then this blog post at TechRepublic succinctly sums up the advice you'll find from many other web sites, articles, and blogs.

Society: Important issues to discuss with your friends and family.

One of the most remarkable things about the USA, as a rather biased citizen, is our ability to suck up our pride, admit a mistake, and try to prevent it from happening again. One way that the USA tries to prevent future occurrences is to convene a commission of some kind. I found this analysis by David Leinweber, a Haas Fellow in Finance and Founding Director of the Center for Innovative Financial Technology at UC Berkeley, of the commission studying banking market reform in the USA to be quite intriguing and, frankly, upsetting.

WorldView: If James Bond knows that the world is not enough, then so should I.

I'm always on the lookout for issues related to safe and clean water. If you think people can be grumpy when oil is in short supply, imagine what it's like when there's not enough drinking water for everyone. See how India is dealing with enormous water issues in this revealing article from the Economist. And I'd be interested to hear what our Indian blogger friends thoughts are on this topic, folks like Rushabh Mehta, Jacob Sebastian, and Pinal Dave. (Water issues have remained one of my passions ever since my years working for NASA developing the water recycling systems for the International Space Station, in which we made water of the H20 that passes through the human body re-drinkable. And it tastes good. Incidentally, all of the technology we developed for this project, as with all non-classified government projects, became public domain. ECLSS technology is now used in hundreds of commercial products ranging from household detergents to commercial solvents to filtration systems.)

Thanks!

-Kevin

Twitter @KEKline