Internals on Andy M Mallon - AM²

What the heck is the SSISDB? Where does it come from?

Mon, 18 Oct 2021 09:00:15 -0400

Back in my day, we stored SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) packages in msdb, or the file system. Well, I’m neither dead nor retired, so that’s not an accurate statement–today is still “my time.” But when I was learning about SQL Server, those were the only two options. If you or your environment predate SQL Server 2012, then you might only be familiar with those two options.

Transaction log growth during BACKUP

Mon, 10 Apr 2017 08:06:37 -0400

Over on Stack Exchange, someone asked why their transaction log was growing very fast during a full backup. An interesting tidbit to this question is that the database is in SIMPLE recovery – so the log should stay tiny, right?

Wrong. While taking a full backup of the database, SQL Server is unable to reuse the transaction log for the duration of the backup, even if the database is in SIMPLE recovery. If your database is very busy, or backups take a long period of time, this can require a large transaction log, even if the database is in SIMPLE recovery.

Nonclustered index storage on clustered columnstore

Fri, 06 Jan 2017 11:47:02 -0500

Question

In SQL Server, a non-unique nonclustered index on a rowstore table incorporates the base object’s bookmark (RID or clustering key) at all levels of the nonclustered index structure. The bookmark is stored as part of the nonclustered index key at all index levels.