During the class, I kept a list of all the "I can't believe this is really the case with SQL*Server..." items, and thought you might all like to see it. These are just notes I took on a Palm Pilot, so forgive me if they are a litte undetailed. I walked away from the class thinking, "this is just MS Access with bells and whistles." I'm not saying it doesn't have its place in the database market, but I just don't see how it competes with Oracle and DB2. If you even want to think about scaling, you have to implement Windows clustering, which is one of the hidden costs I see that Microsoft doesn't come right out and say.
*Row size cannot span multiple 8k pages, therefore max row size = 8k
*Cannot take DB out of "archivelog" mode. Can limit what is posted to txn log, but cannot stop it.
*Txn logs not mirrored. Must rely on RAID or other mirroring software.
*Separate permissions for RI checking. Requires two permission grants if foreign key exists - one for child table and one for parent table. Called REFERENCES permission.
*Recommended that ALL production objects owned by DBO - not conducive to multi-schema instances.
*Activities that are restricted during backups:
1. Creating or modifying databases.
2. Performing autogrow operations.
3. Creating indexes.
4. Performing nonlogged operations.
5. Shrinking a database.
*Backups directly to tape require the tape to be attached locally to SQL Server.
*When txn log fills up, have to just "truncate" the log in order for processing to continue. Leaves system vulnerable until you get a full DB backup.
*If you have a 100GB DB that is full, your backup will be 100GB. No compression of backups!
Jim
Oracle Database Administrator
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Jim Hawkins
Oracle Database Administrator
VelvetMellocet_at_netscape.net
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