DBASchool – Limited Seats Remain
With only 15 total seats, we’re now down to only a few remaining for the April class. This is an in-person class that I’ll be teaching that focuses on the practical, immediately usable items you need to know when working with SQL Server. From security the planning to performance and best practices, we’ll be showing things you will want to know about and we’ll also go through how you can apply them right away on your own systems. The course features the presentations, discussions and work with SQL Server to apply the items shown. I hope to see you there at this unique 3-day in-person class.
More Design Experience Feedback
I wanted to share some additional notes about the database design questions posted – if you’d like to jump in, just drop me a quick email here. Ironically, many of you have gone the opposite direction from what I’d typically suggest when it comes to one database vs. more smaller databases. My thinking and experience has been in planning for recovery issues, and in maintainability which admittedly have strong pro and con arguments in favor of single databases, and in favor of splitting up the world. At the risk of invoking "it depends," I think it’s interesting to see how different people approach the options for designing your systems.
I think perhaps the line in the sand that I had seen (or rather assumption I had made) was that I assumed the information in the databases was standalone, with perhaps reporting (but certainly not transaction-oriented operations) were the target for the databases, making them somewhat autonomous. It makes the options a bit more compelling in splitting things up. But hey, it’s an opinion too. 🙂
From Leanne – "I prefer one large database to 10 small ones if the data is related. It allows the use of referential constraints to be used between related tables. This lets the database make sure the data is correct. I have seen the latter and even though the application(s) are supposed to be keeping the data correct, it always works out that something over time gets out of whack. If I had to support 10 small ones, I would be creating a job to verify nightly (or at bare minimum weekly) that the data is correct so it can be fixed ASAP."
From Derrick – "It is my experience, that design is the most important factor when dealing with databases and applications. I believe that 80%+ of poor performance in systems is due to poor queries. A well designed database will reduce the ability to use poor queries, but a database must be monitored to determine how it is being accessed and what maintenance is required. There is not enough information given in the questions asked, but if designed properly, single or multiple database performance should not differ greatly.
For Query performance it totally depends on how the data is being queried. I will assume since a tool is being developed, the queries will be somewhat static as opposed to ad-hoc, so performance concerns should be able to be diminished with a well designed database. Of the 6000-8000 users worldwide, how many will be using the tool concurrently? My experience tells me 25-50% at most.
For Resource utilization, not my strong point, I believe the advantage would go to multiple databases over a single. That being said, I think network architecture can vary greatly as will its impact.
For size concerns, I believe a good design makes all the difference, whether one huge or multiple large. Maintenance would be my main concern with multiple. My first question is are you running Enterprise Edition? If so, I would design it as a single partitioned database with aligned indexes. Depending on your partitioning scheme, you would be getting the best of both worlds.
The main issue is to understand the source data and how the users are going to use it and design from there."
See YOU at the vConference
20 different speakers are pulling together their excellent content, approaches and ideas and presenting it to you! SQL Server tips, best practices, tools, tuning and much more. Business Intelligence tips, approaches and specific how-to information, SharePoint information on setting up and administering SharePoint systems – all of this and a ton of different, entirely new and fresh sessions. Where else can you attend a conference online – a REAL conference – with 75+ sessions, and a lot of interaction, live chat, session replays, session transcripts and downloads…
Mark your calendars now for April 7, 8 and 9th – and get more information or register here. (Yes, group discounts are available too! Here’s the form.)