Pro SQL Server Internals

Pro SQL Server Internals explains how different SQL Server components work “under the hood” and how they communicate with each other. This is the practical book with a large number of examples that will show you how various design and implementation decisions affect the behavior and performance of your systems.

Pro SQL Server Internals covers a multiple SQL Server versions starting with SQL Server 2005 all the way up to the recently released SQL Server 2014. You’ll learn about new SQL Server 2014 features including the new Cardinality Estimator, In-Memory OLTP Engine (codename Hekaton), and Clustered Columnstore Indexes. With Pro SQL Server Internals, you have a solid roadmap for understanding the depth and power of the SQL Server database backend, regardless of the version and edition of SQL Server you use.

Pro SQL Server Internals does the following:

• Explains how to design efficient database schema, indexing, and transaction strategies.
• Shows how various database objects and technologies are implemented internally and when they should or should not be used.
• Demonstrates how SQL Server executes queries and works with data and transaction logs.

What you’ll learn

• Design and develop efficient database solutions utilizing SQL Server as the database backend.
• Troubleshoot and address design, concurrency, and performance issues in systems.
• Choose the right database objects and technologies for the job.
• Improve system availability and manageability and reduce implementation costs with data partitioning.
• Design efficient Disaster Recovery and High-Availability strategies for systems.
• Improve the performance of OLTP and Data Warehouse systems by utilizing new SQL Server 2014 features, such as the In-Memory OLTP Engine and Clustered Columnstore Indexes.

Who this book is for

Pro SQL Server Internals is a book for developers and database administrators who want to design, develop, and maintain systems in a way that gets the most from SQL Server. This book is an excellent choice for people who prefer to understand and fix the root cause of a problem, rather than applying a ‘band aid’ to it.

Table of Contents

Part 1 – Tables and Indexes
Chapter 1: Data storage internals
Chapter 2: Tables and Indexes – Internal Structure and Access Methods
Chapter 3: Statistics
Chapter 4: Special Indexing and Storage Features
Chapter 5: Index fragmentation
Chapter 6: Designing and tuning the indexes

Part 2: Other things that matter
Chapter 7: Constraints
Chapter 8: Triggers
Chapter 9: Views
Chapter 10: Functions
Chapter 11: XML
Chapter 12: Temporary Tables
Chapter 13: CLR
Chapter 14: CLR types
Chapter 15: Data partitioning
Chapter 16: System design considerations

Part 3: Locking, Blocking and Concurrency
Chapter 17: Lock types
Chapter 18: Troubleshooting Blocking issues
Chapter 19: Deadlocks
Chapter 20: Lock Escalations
Chapter 21: Optimistic isolation levels
Chapter 22: Application locks
Chapter 23: Schema locks
Chapter 24: Designing transaction strategies

Part 4: Query Life Cycle
Chapter 25: Query Optimization and Execution
Chapter 26: Plan Caching

Part 5: Practical Troubleshooting
Chapter 27: System Troubleshooting
Chapter 28: Extended events

Part 6: Inside the transaction log
Chapter 29: Transaction Log Internals
Chapter 30: Designing a Backup Strategy
Chapter 31: Designing a High Availability Strategy

Part 7: In-Memory OLTP Engine
Chapter 32: Hekaton (In Memory OLTP Engine)

Part 8: Columnstore Indexes
Chapter 33: In-Memory OLTP Programmability
Chapter 34: Introduction to Columnstore indexes
Chapter 35: Clustered Columnstore indexes