To ensure that queries run as efficiently as possible, the database administrator needs to monitor performance to find inefficient queries. This article focuses on exploring how a DBA can monitor the I/Os against an instance of SQL Server, using Dynamic Management Objects, or more commonly know as Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) and Functions (DMFs).

Ever wonder what the Oracle Database Cost Based Optimizer (CBO) was doing behind the scenes or how it comes up with an execution plan? While other tools or settings show us WHAT the CBO comes up with, the 10053 trace event setting tells us HOW the CBO came to its decision (the final execution plan).

One of the most integral components and critical success factors of any enterprise data warehousing initiative is the Solutions Architecture document, a high-level conceptual model of a data warehousing solution. Learn why this collaborative effort that addresses the needs of all major stakeholders, including both the business units and Information Technology (IT), is essential.

Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11gR2) makes it easier than ever to isolate and identify potential root causes of poor I/O performance. This article focuses on the various Oracle and non-Oracle tools to generate sample workloads to provide sufficient metrics for detection and eventual resolution of performance bottlenecks within the database's underlying input/output (I/O) subsystem.

Rob Gravelle explores the MySQL UPDATE statement, which is used to modify existing records in a table. Among its many features, he looks at how to update multiple tables, avoiding mistakes, and how to limit how many rows are updated.

In October 2009, IBM announced that some rather neat technology known as data sharing would be delivered for the IBM DB2 for Linux, Unix and Windows product, in an optional facility dubbed pureScale. Julian Stuhler takes a closer look at this technology and the possible implications for the entire IBM DB2 world.

Marcin Policht demonstrates how to leverage SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) package variables in order to modify SSIS properties without directly editing package content.

Crunched by the economy and squeezed by competition, businesses and consumers alike are turning to mobile computing. This report wraps up our overview of the top contenders in the mobile database market with a look at Sybase SQL Anywhere and SQLite.

Today's workforce and consumers have become increasingly mobile. Businesses crunched by the economy or squeezed by competition look to mobile computing to gain a competitive advantage. This report examines the top contenders in the mobile database market space, starting with SQL Server Compact, Oracle Database Lite and IBM DB2 Everyplace.

Learn how you too can stamp out common database errors and learn a lot about relational databases along the way. 'Ambiguous Groups' is extracted from 'SQL Antipatterns', published by the Pragmatic Bookshelf.

Constantly watching CPU utilization is critical to a database administrator's understanding of their database system. The sar utility, while seemingly small and insignificant can and should be used to help initially determine if any high-level CPU resource usage is out of balance, potentially pointing to database processing that requires tuning.

Multi-master MySQL provides a database administrator with a host of new features. Sean Hull discusses how multi-master MySQL aids the DBA in areas of database administration that can negatively impact performance of the primary database.

Many critical business applications now execute in an environment separate from that of the enterprise database server. The database administrator often finds monitoring and performance tuning of these "distributed" applications to be especially difficult. This article looks at common performance issues of distributed applications and presents advice to assist the IBM DB2 database administrator in mitigating performance problems.

SQL can support the creation of variable hierarchical structures in a number of differently controlled operations that can be combined. Michael M. David describes a powerful and flexible automatic method of dynamic structure generation.

Oracle's software is freely available for personal use but you'll have to pay for access to technical notes, patches, and other specialized content. Plus, there's a technical/legal catch; you can't use My Own Support to find database articles under a different product license. In terms of compliance, you really need a database product. Enter Oracle Database Personal Edition.

Julian Stuhler shares his pick of the most important current trends in the world of IBM Information Management. Some are completely new and some are evolutions of existing technologies, and he's betting that every one of them will have some sort of impact on data management professionals during the next 12-18 months.

Increasingly more organizations are turning to Business Intelligence professionals to provide historical, current, and predictive views of business operations on their critical information. As a Business Intelligence consultant, your challenge is not usually the sourcing or delivery of the information, but how that information is used going forward once you have left the organization.

A database administrator can create ad-hoc packages to implement ETL via SSIS or use methods based on software programming principles. Ad-hoc packages may seem advantageous but can lead to duplication of effort. Learn how to implement the second of these options by taking advantage of package variables.

Multi-master replication for MySQL is easy to setup, is similar to master-slave replication and provides a host of features and options not available with the regular master-slave setup. Add to that the MMM database management tool, and you have a flexible, highly available MySQL cluster on which to host your application.

Database administrators have both an Instance level and a Database level auditing approach with IBM DB2 9.5 and 9.7. Understanding auditing at the database level requires a little more work than the instance level. Rebecca Bond shares some tips that will start you on your way with database level auditing.