Tales from the Doghouse - So, what are your SQL Server "Worst Practices"

Sunday, July 30, 2006

So, what are your SQL Server "Worst Practices"

Peter DeBetta and I are going to have fun putting together a presentation on "worst practices", and by doing so we will be illustrating the "best practices".

Look for us to be onstage together at SQL Connections this Fall at the Mandalay Bay.

So, what are some of your "worst practices" that you'd like to share?

Sunday, July 30, 2006 2:46:35 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Comments [2] -
Conferences | Microsoft | SQL Server

Sunday, July 30, 2006 9:29:26 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

well, some of the things I have seen: In order for you to create tables as dbo, you need to be in the admin group on the server. I have also seen, on replicated databases that are in read only, the users dont seem to work, and the only way to get them a user to work was to make it part of sysadmin group.

Steve | steveAT NOSPAMstevienova dot com

Tuesday, August 01, 2006 12:50:24 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Let me give you a couple of real life examples:
- Guideline for a data and log file of this DB: everything MUST reside on the D drive
- Why use exotic datatypes when you can place everything in CHAR fields?
eg. Use CHAR(105) when 99% of the data is less than 50 characters, CHAR(10) for a 10 digit number
- If you can use MONTH(FieldName) = 9 don't bother rewriting this as a BETWEEN that uses an index
- Selecting fields is a real pain, use SELECT * instead
- Prefix all LIKE queries with %

I'm suprised they came to me with performance problems :-)

Dis4ea | dis4eaAT NOSPAMgmail dot com

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