Can Your Database Handle the Stress?
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Can Your Database Handle the Stress?
Stress testing is one of the last things we tend to implement when developing a database. There are lots of reasons I can think of without really trying:
- It's hard to stress test when you don't have a lot of data already in the database.
- It's difficult to predict what kinds of loads will really occur.
- It's difficult and/or expensive to build a hardware and software environment providing expected results from your production systems.
- It takes time/resources/$ to develop stress tests.
- It's just not fun and feels like the time isn't worth the risk.
The cost of not stress testing came home to me recently when a client added the proverbial straw, breaking the camel's back. They were using a view that was on the cusp of not working. It had many tables, a few scalar functions, and a lot (I mean a LOT) of case statements with multiple branches. The view was already on our radar to be re-factored.
Before we could get to it, another requirement came that was implemented with one additional case statement. We made the change and unit tested with great success. So, the change was pushed into production, where things quickly choked and died.
Query performance times went from sub second to a minute or more; just adding that one last case statement.
Many of us have experienced this kind of scenario. So, I'm looking for experiences and solutions from you. Vendors that have tools to help with this kind of problem are invited to reply as well. All comers are welcome. Send your responses to btaylor@sswug.org and I'll be glad to post them in future newsletters. Feel free to send input for other reasons you have not been able to implement stress testing as well.
Cheers,
Ben
SSWUG.org Free Expo Event Friday, September 24, 2010 9:00 a.m. PT
This free expo will focus on SQL Server Performance Monitoring, Tuning & Troubleshooting. Working with SQL Server to provide for excellent performance means understanding your options. This expo will focus on items you’ll want to know for monitoring your SQL Servers, then what you can do with that information to have systems that work well.
Register here.
See you online!
Stephen Wynkoop,
Founder Microsoft SQL Server MVP swynk@sswug.org
Facebook Twitter @swynk
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Featured Products For Your Review
The following products are in the Product Directory,
and may help in your use of your database engine. Take a look when you get a minute.
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AvePoint-DocAve Migrator
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Streamline the process of transferring business-critical content from a variety
of legacy sources into Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Exchange. DocAve enables
granular and bulk, scheduled and real-time migrations, while retaining all associated
metadata. DocAve’s pre-migration analyzer ensures your migration jobs will perform
successfully and completely, while its unified interface lets you manage the entire
migration process from a single, browser-based console. With DocAve you can migrate
according to your business needs and schedules, for seamless co-existence of the
SharePoint and all legacy platforms throughout the migration process.
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Bradmark
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Bradmark Surveillance DB™ suite provides essential tools for real-time monitoring,
issue identification and resolution, rules-based event management, data archiving
and reporting. The client/agent-based architecture allows for n+1 scalability to
an unlimited number of servers and monitors the OS to ensure data integrity. Supporting
Microsoft, Oracle, Sybase and IBM database investments that run on UNIX, Linux and
Windows operating systems, Surveillance provides a single, integrated source for
DBAs to manage multi-database, multi-OS system enterprises from a single source.
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DB Sophic
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Let Qure tune your million-query workload automatically! Qure analyzes all aspects
of the workload and database to tune the indexing scheme, optimize SQL syntax, and
tweak the schema. And no more guessing: Qure benchmarks all of its recommendations
against a copy-of-production. Now you know the performance gain of each and every
query in advance.
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WestClinTech
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XLeratorDB adds powerful new calculations to Microsoft SQL Server. With more than
400 functions, XLeratorDB performs all the same finance, statistics, math, engineering
and strings operations found in Excel (plus many that are not). Running right in
the DBMS layer, XLeratorDB helps you reduce the kind of errors that make Excel (in)famous,
reduce the amount of data you push around the network, and create huge savings in
development time and costs. Rigorous testing, full documentation and no changes
in your data lets you develop and deploy – quickly, easily and inexpensively – with
confidence.
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Find out about these and other products in the
Product Directory.
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Today's Articles Note: 'Guest' articles below will be available for seven days to registered guests.
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