Reporting and analytics cannot be achieved without a very good data model at the background. And using Analysis services for reporting requirement is always something very common architecture. But getting data from relational engine and keeping data for analysis upto date is the challenge. What is the concept of Slowly Changing Dimension? And what is a Hybrid Slowly Changing Dimension.

As databases volumes become big and big the best way to optimize would be take the big problem and break it up into smaller chunks. During a large server deployment DBA suggested implementing extensive partitioning for our transaction tables. What are the basics of creating, managing and deploying SQL Server partitioning?

There are multiple performance troubleshooting tools which a DBA can use inside SQL Server from Perfmon, SQL Profiler and multiple third Party tools. One of the hidden features most forgotten is the Data Collector inside SQL Server. What is a Data Collector? What are the predefined collectors inside SQL Server which can be used?

Recently I was contacted by one of my friends operating a large database that he was running out of disk space because of some table with many indexes unnecessarily created. Even after truncating the table the space was not given back to the OS. When does SQL Server give the space back once data is deleted?

Using datetime functions inside SQL Server have always been a struggle and there are multiple options. There have been interesting usages of GETDATE but interesting functions like SYSDATETIME(), GETUTCDATE() and SYSYTCDATETIME() functions were also introduced. When would you use these functions and what are their differences?

As part of performance tuning exercise our developer always suggested to use SET based operations rather than using procedural languages. One of the suggestions given for substitute for hierarchical data structure was to use of CTE. What are CTEs inside SQL Server, what are its advantages and how can you rewrite a subquery using CTE?

Compliance is one of the non-negotiable in this era. SQL Server has had so many options like C2 Auditing since the SQL Server 2000 days. With the advent of Policy Based Management inside SQL Server 2005 - What are the different aspects involving PBM one needs to know?

Any database design can include only the Normal forms. But while a DBA performs a product deployment it is critical to take care of certain factors for Index creation. On that lines, explain FILL_FACTOR and PAT_FACTOR inside SQL Server? What are its uses and when would you use the same?

Though High-Availability is something critical for all large database deployments. There are multiple options one can use. For discussion today, what is database mirroring option? What are the Database Mirroring enhancements done with SQL Server 2008 R2 edition? How is it different from Log shipping?

Work of a DBA is never to be underestimated. An effective DBA’s role maybe understated for the 364 days in a year but for that 1 day when the database gets into a corrupt state is when all the skills come to the fore. Recently while working on a 24x7 large database split into multiple filegroups got into a corrupt state. DBA brought the database ONLINE quickly and was doing a restore in the background. To understand what he would have done, what is Piecemeal Restore inside SQL Server? When was t