Tag Archives: hekaton

My articles published on SearchSQLServer.com from January 2014 to September 2014

The following is the list of my articles published on SearchSQLServer.com from January 2014 to September 2014. To read these articles, you must be a member of SearchSQLServer.com.

SearchSQLServer.com

Learn how to use SQL Server Import and Export Wizard, Published on September 3, 2014

SQL Server 2014 provides a variety of methods to transfer data between SQL Server databases and Microsoft Excel documents. One method is the SQL Server Import and Export Wizard, and this article provides a step-by-step guide for using this wizard to transfer data between SQL Server databases and Microsoft Excel worksheets.

The key to boosting OLTP with SQL Server 2014 In-Memory, Published on August 8, 2014

The SQL Server 2014 in-memory OLTP engine — project name Hekaton — is one of the key new performance-related architectural enhancements to the SQL Server database engine. It is designed to boost performance of OLTP and data-warehouse workloads and reduce processing times. The SQL Server 2014 in-memory OLTP engine is supported on 64-bit Enterprise, Developer and Evaluation editions of SQL Server 2014.

This article explains how to improve the performance of OLTP applications using SQL Server 2014 in-memory OLTP engine. This article also details what makes SQL Server 2014 in-memory OLTP engine different from other vendors in-memory OLTP engines and how to use that to your advantage.

Top four tips for virtualizing your SQL Server instance, Published on July 28, 2014

The increasing need for SQL Server instances is raising costs. Therefore, controlling the cost of databases and related hardware resources and improving and expanding them as necessary have become increasingly important. An ideal solution to this problem is virtualization.

This article shows you how to control the costs through effective virtualization.

The top three SQL Server third-party tools, Published on June 30, 2014

Monitoring and optimizing SQL Server performance, as well as identifying and fixing performance bottlenecks in SQL Server databases, can be a daunting task for database administrators (DBAs), developers and application support teams. SQL Server performance is influenced by factors like server hardware, operating system setup and database configuration. SQL Server provides a comprehensive set of tools for monitoring its own performance, but many SQL Server DBAs, developers and application support teams choose to use third-party performance monitoring tools.

SQL Server third-party performance monitoring tools are more flexible than the tools that ship with the product, and they provide a centralized repository for performance-related data. Moreover, they are easy to use and provide real-time visibility into all SQL Server performance. Third-party monitoring tools can help monitor SQL Server and database performance, resolve potential problems with threshold-based and trend-based alerts, and isolate the root cause of application performance issues.

This article explores three of the top SQL Server third-party tools for quickly identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks.

Tips to escape a SQL Server pitfall or performance bottleneck, Published on April 29, 2014

Over the last decade, many complex enterprise applications have been developed and deployed using Microsoft SQL Server. Today, SQL Server is a cornerstone of modern business applications and is at the center of the business processes of many leading companies. SQL Server applications range from line-of-business applications in production, to internal customer relationship management and decision support systems, to customer-facing e-commerce and Web self-service applications. Consequently, SQL Server performance and scalability are high on IT priority lists, and delivering optimal SQL Server performance and scalability is one of the key tasks of all SQL Server DBAs.

However, many SQL Server systems suffer from poor performance and scalability, often caused by poor database design, index design and a SQL Server system improperly configured for the workload. The reason for this is that the main goal of the development process of any large-scale SQL Server project is functionality, with performance and scalability frequently treated as an afterthought.

While troubleshooting SQL Server database system performance problems is a difficult task, significant performance improvements can be achieved with a relatively small time investment. This article provides five tips for SQL Server users, from avoiding a hardware performance bottleneck to dealing with database design.

Dive deep into SQL Server 2014 in-memory OLTP, Published on March 14, 2014

The SQL Server 2014 in-memory online transaction processing (OLTP) engine, previously code-named “Hekaton“, allows you to create in-memory optimized OLTP tables within a conventional relational database. SQL Server 2014 in-memory OLTP engine enables customers to build mission-critical applications and Big Data solutions using high-performance, in-memory technology across OLTP. It is one of the key new performance-related architectural enhancements to SQL Server 2014, although it is only supported on 64-bit Enterprise, Developer and Evaluation editions.

Checkout this article to learn how to set it up.

Defining half a dozen daily SQL Server DBA responsibilities, Published on February 20, 2014

SQL Server database administration can be a complex and stressful job. Database administrators’ responsibilities cover the performance, integrity and security of business data and SQL Server databases. To fulfil their duties and to make business data available to its users, database administrators have to perform routine DBA checks on their SQL Servers to monitor their status.

So, what critical aspects of SQL Server should all DBAs include in their daily checklist? This article highlights six daily DBA responsibilities that every SQL Server manager should perform.

SQL Server encryption features in SQL Server 2014, Published on February 6, 2014

Data security is a vital and growing concern for many organizations due to the increasing loss and unauthorized disclosure of confidential data. Regulatory requirements often require robust encryption solution for data such as credit card and Social Security numbers. SQL Server 2014 provides database administrators with several options to encrypt data when transmitted through the network, while creating a backup, or when stored on the server or network.

This article guides you through the different encryption options that are available in SQL Server 2014 to encrypt confidential data in the SQL Server database.

Digging through SQL Server OLAP storage models, Published on January 28, 2014

The physical storage design for your multidimensional applications affects the latency, size and performance of your project. Therefore, when designing the physical storage for it, you must determine how to store the dimensions and measures, and how to design an effective physical storage strategy for multidimensional applications.

This article shows how to distinguish among the three SQL Server OLAP storage models and decide which one is best in different use cases.

Eight key SQL Server 2014 features, Published on January 23, 2014

Microsoft SQL Server is an enterprise database server that is the cornerstone of modern business applications and is in the center of the business processes of many leading organizations. The latest release of Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Server 2014, has many new features that let you design, build, and deploy high-performance mission-critical OLTP applications and Big Data solutions.

This article reviews the eight key new SQL Server 2014 Database Engine features.

I hope you will find these articles useful. 🙂

Have a good week!

Basit

My articles published on SSWUG.org from March 2014 to July 2014

The following is the list of my articles published on SSWUG.org from March 2014 to July 2014. To read these articles, you must have SSWUG.org standard-level membership.

SSWUG.org logo

SQL Server 2014 Replication, Published on July 29, 2014

You use replication to move data between servers. Replication is important in distributed environments, when archiving data, and as an inexpensive way to support high availability.

This article explores the different types of replication, the components involved in replication, and the steps necessary to configure replication.

Microsoft SQL Server 2014: Database Engine key new features, Published on July 15, 2014

Earlier this year, Microsoft released SQL Server 2014. Like previous releases of SQL Server, Microsoft further enhances the SQL Server Database Engine. Microsoft not only improved existing SQL Server Database Engine features, but also introduces many new Database Engine features, including new in-memory OLTP engine (aka Hekaton), Buffer Pool Extension (BPE), Updateable Columnstore indexes, encryption for backups, Resource Governor enhancements for physical IO control, AlwaysOn enhancements, SQL Server Data Files in Windows Azure, Windows Azure Integrated Backups, new design for Cardinality Estimation, Incremental Statistics, Security enhancements, Transact-SQL enhancements, and so on. With the help of these new features of SQL Server 2014 Database Engine we can design, build and deploy mission-critical database applications.

This three part article series discusses in-detail the key new features of the Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Database Engine.

Developing Report Models, Published on July 8, 2014

A report model is a metadata description of a data source. It contains a business model of a data, a physical model of the underlying database, and a mapping between the two. The business model, also known as a semantic model, describes the data by using familiar business names, usually recorded in a business lexicon.

This article reviews the benefit of using report models.

Guidelines and Best Practices for developing and implementing a Reporting Solution, Published on June 6, 2014

Your reporting solution design should match technologies provided by Microsoft SQL Server™ 2014 Reporting Services to the requirements and abilities of users, and the requirements of the business. The documents that make up your reporting specification should also describe the purpose, data content, layout, and user interaction that are required for each report.

After you have an appropriate design in place, the next step is to develop the reports as effectively as possible by using appropriate tools that Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Data Tools (SSDT 2014) provides. SQL Server 2014 Data Tools (SSDT 2014) is a Microsoft Visual Studio environment with enhancements that are specific to business intelligence solutions. SQL Server 2014 Data Tools (also known as SSDT 2014) is included with Microsoft SQL Server™ 2014. You use SQL Server 2014 Data Tools for creating and managing solutions and projects for Reporting Services reports and report-related items. SQL Server 2014 Data Tools provides the Report Designer authoring environment. In Report Designer, you can open, modify, preview, save, and deploy report definitions, shared data sources, shared datasets, and report parts. For more information about SQL Server 2014 Data Tools solutions, projects, project templates, and configurations used for Reporting Services, and the views, menus, toolbars, and shortcuts that you can use in Report Designer, refer to SQL Server 2014 Books Online article “Reporting Services in SQL Server 2014 Data Tools (SSDT 2014)”.

This two part article series offers up some basic high-level guidelines, best practices and considerations for developing and implementing reporting solutions with SQL Server 2014 Data Tools (SSDT).

Handling blocks and deadlock in SQL Server, Published on May 15, 2014

A database server should be able to service requests from a large number of concurrent users. When a database server is servicing requests from many clients, there is a strong possibility that conflicts will occur because different processes request access to the same resources at the same time. A conflict in which one process is waiting for another to release a resource is called a block. Although in SQL Server a blocked process usually resolves itself when the first process releases the resource but there are times when a process holds a transaction lock and doesn’t release it.

This article offers up several options for troubleshooting and resolving blocks in SQL Server.

Understanding the purpose of SQL Server Agent, Published on April 21, 2014

The SQL Server Agent is a Windows service that runs scheduled jobs. A job is a set of one or more management tasks. The SQL Server Agent service depends on the SQL Server service.

This two part article series shows you how you can configure and manage SQL Server Agent service and jobs.

SQL Server Integration Service (SSIS): Import and Export wizards, Published on April 14, 2014

SQL Server includes SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). SSIS is primarily a data transform and load utility, but its functionality goes beyond that. SSIS provides a flexible development environment that you can use to identify sources and destinations, processing actions, and decision logic. Several SQL Server data utilities, such as the Database Copy Wizard, are based on SSIS.

This article shows technique of importing and exporting data to and from SQL Server database using SQL Server Import and Export Wizard.

Diving deep into SQL Server Integration Services Transactions, Published on March 31, 2014

A transaction is a logical unit of work made up of one or more tasks. The concept of transaction usually applies to a relational database such as those in Microsoft SQL Server. However, in Integration Services, you can create a transaction that includes any task or container. In general, a transaction is considered to have four primary characteristics: atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability (ACID).

This article provides an overview of transactions and there characteristics. It also shows how you can implement transactions in an SQL Server Integration Services packages.

I hope you will find these articles useful. 🙂

Have a good weekend!

Basit

Book: SQL Server 2014 Development Essentials

I am very happy to announce that my first book “SQL Server 2014 Development Essentials” has now been published by Packt Publishing.

SQL Server 2014 Development Essentials, ISBN: 9781782172550

SQL Server 2014 Development Essentials, ISBN: 9781782172550

SQL Server 2014 Development Essentials is an easy-to-follow yet comprehensive guide that is full of hands-on examples, which you can follow to successfully design, build, and deploy mission-critical database applications with SQL Server 2014. You can view and download the table of contents, sample chapter, code files and the preface of this title on Packt Publishing website here.

Who this book is for?

If you are a database developer, architect, or administrator who wants to learn how to design, implement, and deliver a successful database solution with SQL Server 2014, then this book is for you. This book will provide you with all the skills you need to successfully create, design, and deploy databases using SQL Server 2014. You will also learn how to add, modify, and delete data stored within a database. You will use Transact-SQL statements to create and manage advanced database objects that include scalar and table-valued functions, views, stored procedures, and triggers. Finally, you will learn about how SQL Server works, how indexes and statistics improve query performance, and the new SQL Server 2014 in-memory technologies.

From this book, you will learn:

  • Get introduced to SQL Server 2014’s new in-memory database engine
  • Understand SQL Server database architecture and relational database design
  • Use joins, subqueries, CTEs, and windowing functions to write advanced Transact-SQL queries
  • Learn about tools that let you monitor SQL Server database performance
  • Identify and troubleshoot blocks or deadlocks that might slow down a system
  • Design, create, and manage advanced database objects that include scalar and table-valued functions, views, stored procedures, and triggers
  • Use SQL Server 2014’s structured error handling blocks to handle errors that occur in the Transact-SQL batches and programmable objects

You can order it at Packt Publishing, Amazon UK, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. It will also be available at O’Reilly Media and Safari Books Online.

Please feel free to contact me via twitter (@BasitAali) or via email, if you have any questions or feedback about this book.