Apr 9, 2014: Columnstore Indexes in SQL Server 2014: Flipping the DW Faster Bit

Jimmy May

Columnstore indexes were introduced in SQL Server 2012 & have been wholly re-architected & optimized for SQL Server 2014. Columnstore indexes are optimized for data warehouse workloads & are a hybrid technology leveraging the best of off-disk & in-memory capabilities. Transparent to the app, columnstore has been shown to render queries at sub-second response times which heretofore took many minutes or longer. This presentation includes an overview of SQL Server 2012 & a deep dive into SQL Server 2014 columnstore indexes, including a review of the architecture, as well as the challenges, workarounds, travails, & big wins at customer sites & inside MSIT. The presentation is rich in demos, including leveraging IaaS—Columnstore in The Cloud. Learn whether columnstore can change your users’ world & why columnstore may be a compelling reason to upgrade. Learn how columnstore indexes flip the DW faster bit & why columnstore manifests my motto, “Change the world or go home!”
Objective #1: Understand that columnstore indexes can increase SQL Server DW query performance by one, two, or three orders of magnitude.
Objective #2: Understand the advantages & limitations of columnstore indexes in SQL Server 2012 & the significant improvements available in SQL Server 2014.
Objective #3: Understand the circumstances under which columnstore indexes may be compelling reason to upgrade to SQL Server 2014.

Jimmy (Blog | Twitter) is a Principal Architect in Microsoft IT. He’s formerly a Senior Program Manager for the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQL CAT) where he managed the Customer Lab which hosts the biggest, fastest, & most interesting SQL Server apps from all over the world. His last day job was Senior Database Architect for one of the world’s largest SQL Server high-throughput OLTP DBs. He was a founder & on the executive committees of both the Indiana Windows User Group (www.iwug.net) & Indianapolis Professional Association for SQL Server (www.indypass.org). He is a Microsoft Certified Master, is a recipient of the MS IT Gold Star award, & has been selected for the Microsoft Oracle Center of Excellence.

Theresa Iserman
Backup and Recovery Basics

Download the Presentation Slides here.

As a DBA, two of your most important responsibilities are backing up data and knowing how to recover it. In this presentation, we’ll talk about backup types, recovery models and recovery point objectives. I’ll demonstrate backing up data and recovering it to a point in time. By the end of the session, you’ll know what a copy-only backup is, when to take a tail-log backup and what it means to restore a database with no recovery.

Theresa (LinkedIn | Twitter) is a database administrator based in Hood River, Oregon. She has over 15 years of experience in the IT industry and has held roles in Business Intelligence, Web Application Development and Technical Project Management. Theresa is passionate about SQL Server and enjoys participating in the PASS community. When she’s not experimenting with the latest SQL Server technologies, Theresa enjoys windsurfing and riding her road bike around the Columbia Gorge.