Downloads from this Issue

• Forwarding Pointers by Randy Dyess (download now)
• Discovering SQL Servers by Alan Miner(download now)
• Locking, Blocking, and Deadlocks by Rahul Sharma(download now)
• GUID Spreadsheets (100 users, 400 users)

Table of Contents

Editorial: The Sky's the Limit by Steve Jones

Scheduled Jobs and Disk Contention by Greg Gonzalez An examination of disk contention and performance with mutltiple jobs running at the same time.
	Locking, Blocking, and Deadlocks by Rahul Sharma A detailed explanation of locks and blocks that can occur on a SQL Server. An examination of causes and potential ways to avoid issues. (download the code)
Discovering SQL Servers by Alan Miner A look at finding and identifying SQL Servers on your networks using a variety of tools. (download the code)
	GUID Performance by Sean McCown Some analysis on the performance impacts (bad) of using GUIDs for a primary key v integers with the indentity property. Downloads: GUID Spreadsheets (100 users, 400 users)
What's Wrong with GUIDs? by Michael Cape An alternative point of view on why GUIDs have a time and place in your database.
	Forwarding Pointers by Randy Dyess A detailed examination of clustered indexes and forwarding pointers with the performance impact on data retrieval. (download the code)
Is Your Database Secure by Dinesh Asanka A look at SQL injection problems that may be in your applications.
A Featured Interview with Rony Ross by the Steve Mong An interview with Rony Ross of Panorama, a company providing solutions with SQL Server Analysis Services.

To that end we've included a look at a variety of performance related topics. We have a great article on disk contention with multiple tasks running. While the article looks at scheduled jobs that may conflict, any large processes, scheduled or not, might have similar issues. Greg Gonzalez, architect of sqlSentry, has written a fantastic reference about your disk system and one that you should use to examine the periodic slow performance of any server, looking for overlapping processes.

We also have noted author Rahul Sharma's look at locking, blocking, and deadlocks. This is one that will probably teach anyone something about this fundamental database process; I know I learned a couple things when reading it. We also examine the performance of GUIDs, a topic that I have not seen anything about, despite the fact that Microsoft pushes their use. Sean McCown presents his research and some benchmarks on their use in comparison with integers and the identity property.

We have a couple of security related topics as well this time. One very detailed look at the various ways you can discover all those hidden SQL Servers on your network by using various tools, written by Alan Miner as well as a good introduction to SQL Injection from Dinesh Asanka. Our best wishes to Dinesh, his family, and friends as they cope with the tsunami damage in Sri Lanka. He's OK, but there is still a lot to deal with and get past.

Lastly we have Randy Dyess of www.transactsql.com with a fantastic explanation of why you should have clustered indexes on your tables. He's taken a look at the performance impacts of forwarding pointers, something else that doesn't seem to ever have been tackled on the web.

This has been an interesting issue and one that's definitely taught me a thing or two. Hopefully you'll enjoy it and take something away as well that you can use to make your systems run a little smoother.

And your phone a little quieter.

Steve Jones