You want to know how much pain you are going to inflict on the server and network before you run that ad hoc query? An explain plan can give you an idea of how long it might take to run, and tell you how much data it thinks will be involved. Cardinality – Fancy Word, Simple Concept From Wikipedia: “In mathematics, the cardinality of a set is a measure of the “number of elements of…
“Those people are fine, they JUST write SQL.” I often hear this in the context of visiting customers and offering to provide training (and yes, software) to their database users. There is a class of people who are deemed unworthy of such productivity tools because they do nothing but ‘just write dumb SQL all day long.’ The only problem is, I know that it’s these people that are largely responsible for running the business. When…
I’ve been referring customers to SQL Developer’s Migration Workbench for a few months now. I thought it might be a good idea to give it a try myself before I send any more children out to play with the wolves. This is NOT a formalized review. This is a quick glance at a cool tool from a cool vendor. I did what all geeks do – I ran it without reading ANY of the product…
Coming up with themes and titles for a blog post can be very challenging. You want something that will catch the eye, but not be so random or out of left field that no one catches your drift. This morning I had two themes battling inside my head for this post. Welcome to the Jungle Baby! Pigs In Space You’re here so you already know who won. Pigs in space? Pigs don’t belong in space?!?!…
Disclaimer: I work for Oracle now. This post pretty much pertains to any and all database IDE and GUIs. –Thanks, Jeff 1/25/2012 Let’s get this out of the way, because anyone who knows me, knows that I have a HUGE bias in this argument: I work for Quest Software, and my primary job is to help sell Toad for Oracle. I also love SQL*Plus, and I use it almost everyday. So don’t bash me because…
My database crashed today. My ‘production’ database that is. The one I rely on for product demonstrations, that thing I do that Quest gives me money for. Pretty funny considering in the last few weeks my blogs have included such gems as: Are You a Real DBA – I argue that you are indeed NOT if you have not went through the crash and recovery nightmare What Databases Should You Back Up – I argue…
Some of my earliest memories involve trips to the dentist when I was maybe 3 or 4 years old. To this day, my blood pressure rises whenever I go in for a simple cleaning. There’s a particular poster I can’t seem to get out of my head, like a bad 80’s song. The intent was to encourage us kiddies to floss our teeth. I remember thinking “Well, I don’t need ALL my teeth…” Hmmm, this…
A lot of good news this week about jobs here in the United States and a bunch of new hires for the month of April has many people feeling much better about the US economy. After being hammered with depressing reports for the past two years, it’s very nice to see the pendulum swing in the other direction. Quest has hired a couple hundred people in the past few months. This is kind of a…
I know you can read, you’re here. But maybe you’re a functioning illiterate. Here’s what I mean. You spend a lot of time in the database writing queries, analyzing data, doing important stuff. Most of the time, things go great for you. You can answer questions for people. You make things happen. The wheels of the business bus go round-and-round. But there’s one thing that really, really scares you. Execution/Explain/Access Plans. Those things that describe…
Disclaimer: I work for Quest Software. I am paid to promote and help sell their software. Did you know we also give away a lot of software, with no intention of selling it? One of the most popular database platforms out there is MySQL. I’m going to guess that’s because it is free (for now). Apparently it is downloaded more than 70,000 times a day. WOW. I don’t use MySQL Jeff. If you are a…
