Back To Basics: What’s the difference between a Scan and a Seek?

There are a few basic operations which SQL will perform when looking for the data that you need.  Here they are listed in the order of worst to best.

• Table Scan
• Clustered Index Scan
• Index Scan
• Clustered Index Seek
• Index Seek

The basic rule to follow is Scans are bad, Seeks are good.

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ITKE is getting an upgrade soon

I’ve been informed that at some point in the near future (within the next couple of weeks probably) that we’ll be upgrading the version of Word Press that we use for the blogs.

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PASS 2008 Wrapup

Well the PASS 2008 summit must be official over as I’m sitting at the airport waiting for my plane.  I was expecting a very long security line here at SeaTac but I was through security within maybe 10 minutes.  While means that the two hours I was planning on standing in line I instead get to sit at Terminal D3 (after just moving from N11 on the far side of the airport) and wait for my flight to Ontario.  I guess the upside is that I got to get some lunch before my flight.

Overall I would have to say that the PASS  2008 summit was a success.  I got some good info about SQL Server, and met a lot of people that I either know from forums or who’s writings I’ve been reading for quite a while now.  Overall the sessions were very informative, and I know that I got something out of just about every session I attended.

Last night a group of MVPs got together for dinner with our MVP lead.  The dinner was a blast with about 30 people attending the dinner.  It was on Friday night so a lot of people had already gone home.  It was great to be able to sit and chat and relax with other people after the rush of PASS being over.

It was great to meet everyone, as well as say high again to people that I met at PASS 2007, SQL 2008 Launch and other conferences.

There were a couple of people that I didn’t have a chance to run across that I wish I did.  Hopefully next year.

See you at PASS 2009 back here in Seattle, Washington.

Denny

PASS 2008 – Day 3

Today was a pretty slow day. I spent most of the day kicking back in the MVP room talking to the MVPs and the Microsoft folks. I did make it to a couple of sessions however.

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PASS 2008 – Day 2 Recapped

Today was another excellent day here at PASS 2008 in rainy Seattle, WA.

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Congratulations to Tom LaRock and Douglas McDowell!

Two of my fellow SQLServerPedia.com editors Tom LaRock and Douglas McDowell, have been nominated for elections on the PASS Board of Directors.

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PASS 2008 – Day 1 Recapped

The sessions from the first day of PASS were great.

Read on for info about a couple of the sessions.

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PASS Summit 2008 Kick Off tonight

For those of you lucky enough to make it to PASS, I’ll be seeing you at the Kick Off party tonight at the Welcome Reception in Room 6ABC at the event.

For those who aren’t able to make it, I’ll do my best to keep you up to date on the goings on at the event.  There was decent coverage for WiFi last year, I’m assuming that there will be good WiFi coverage this year as well.

For those that weren’t aware, tonight is the Welcome receiption for the PASS Summit in Seattle Washington (the summit actually started on Monday for those who attended the Pre Summit Sessions).

I’ll post as often as I can during the summit.

Denny

I’ll be speaking at the Inland Empire .Net User Group (reminder)

The nice folks at the Inland Empire .NET User Group have invited me to come and speak to them.  This is a great speaking opportunity for me as they are about 20 minutes from my house.

I won’t be speaking there until December 9, 2008 (it’s amazing just how far in advance some of this stuff gets scheduled).

I’ll be giving two presentations at the meeting.  The first will be the ever popular Query Tuning, and the second will be a talk on the SQL Server 2008 Resource Governor.  The address and directions to the meeting can be found on the IE .NET User Group web site.  If you are going to attend there meetings they have an RSVP link on the site.

Denny

Microsoft has released more SQL Server 2008 Exams

Microsoft has now released the the majority of the upgrade exams from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008.

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