SQL Internals, The Series

 

This is my very first blog topic, and I decided to start a series of topics about SQL Server Internals.

The term “Internals” is very familiar to most of us; as it normally describes the hidden mechanisms and processes of a device (or apparatus) that eventually derive the visible results.

SQL Server Internals are no different; as by going through the future posts in this blog we will get a grasp of:

• What happens internally in SQL Server when we create, expand, shrink, and move databases?
• What do DBCC commands internally do? and how do they work?
• How does SQL Server handle memory?
• How does SQL Server implement, maintain and manage transactions and concurrency?

Why SQL Server Internals?

You don’t really need to know too much about SQL Server internals to be a successful DBA. You can be operating and managing a small to medium level DB architecture in size, functionality and workload, and can still get things running in an acceptable performance and functional levels. You can sometimes get stuck in some specific tasks or a small problems that you can easily (or with a little effort) resolve using the BOL, external books, or even by digging around in a lot of pretty useful forums and newsgroups over the Internet.

However, in some specific situations like, unclear problem, immediate degradation in performance, sudden awkward behavior, etc, you will need to make some quick and assertive decisions with which the above methods (forums, books, etc) won’t be of rapid help, especially when the problem is very much attached to your own infrastructure implementation with little similarities with those DBAs talk about on the Internet.

So with a proper amount of knowledge in SQL Internals you save can a lot of time (and probably critical data loss) and have a lot of confidence while managing and operating your SQL Server infrastructure

A few points to note about this series

• This is not a beginner’s series: The blog’s audiences are assumed to be SQL Server professionals who have SQL Server in the top 3 in their skills matrix.
• You will need to have some knowledge about the underlying operating system’s internals as well: It is impossible to talk SQL Server Internals without knowing (at least a little bit about) the underlying OS’s Internals. This will be also covered in this series.
• While discussing the SQL Server Internals, we also have to understand the SQL Server Architecture and configuration as well as the underlying platform’s architecture.

 

Sami…