Analysis Services databases must serve a large population of users, and it is best to exploit a scale-out approach: distribute the querying load across multiple hosts, each of which has a copy of the same database. Although database administrators have several options for ensuring that all SSAS instances have the same data, the built-in synchronization method is an effective, easy to implement solution. Database administration expert Baya Dewald shows how built-in synchronization works and how it compares to other approaches. The article also discusses troubleshooting and tuning synchronization performance.

Subqueries and derived tables can add great versatility to SQL statements, cut down complexity, but can occasionally be a curse when their effect on performance is poorly understood. Surely everyone understands the various types of subqueries and how they are used? If you felt a twinge of doubt, here is Rob Sheldon's easy guide to the subject.

This white paper is an overview of the design of the SQL Server Modeling services repository database for supporting schema and data versioning.

This article provides good straightforward advice to ensure that things go well when a database has to be restored from backups.

Learn how to improve the performance of your SQL Server database and understand when the recompilation of queries is necessary and when it is not. Understanding query compilation issues from an operational perspective requires intimate familiarity with two indispensable tools: Performance Monitor and SQL Profiler.

This article will define server-side tracing, explore why it is more efficient than Profiler, and explore how to use it to gather SQL Server 2000 usage information into a physical file.

Python is increasingly used by DBAs as a general-purpose scripting language, despite the pressure to adopt Microsoft's PowerShell. They find it easy to learn, powerful, and reasonably intuitive. This article explains the attraction of Python and gives a general introduction to the language, suitable for anyone who has been wondering whether to give it a try.

Why don't we emphasize the huge advantages of parameterized queries over ad-hoc queries in SQL Server? There is a severe impact on resources and performance from repeatedly using similar ad-hoc queries, instead of reusing the existing query plans. This article shows how you can measure this impact, and springs a surprise or two in the process

In this article we will see how easy it is to use NHibernate in a real world application. We will create, with minimal effort, a fully working sample that allows us to write to and subsequently, read data from a database.

Here we explain how the new hierarchyID data type in SQL Server 2008 helps solve some of the problems in modeling and querying hierarchical information.