Today we had a very informative presentation from Merrill Aldrich on SQL Server storage internals. Merrill demonstrated his SQL Server File Layout Viewer. Here are the details:

Location:
3601 West 76th Street, Suite 600 Edina, MN 55437
Date:
January 21, 2014
Time:
4:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Eureka! Visual deep dive into storage internals

Abstract: Sometimes half the battle in computing is just to see what’s happening. We will take a visual tour of physical database storage structures, using live demos with the freeware application SQL Server File Layout Viewer and our old friends the DBCC commands as guides. See what happens in a data file when you convert a table from a heap to a clustered index! See fragmentation and the havoc wrought by Shrink! Marvel at the behavior of multiple files and filegroups! Index Rebuilds! Eureka!

About Merrill: Merrill Aldrich is a SQL Server DBA with one of the largest credit unions in the US, located in the Seattle area. He’s currently responsible for corralling a sprawling and very diverse collection of ISV-provided SQL Server databases that together serve the organization’s 800,000 members. In a past life he was trained in Architecture, designed buildings, and taught three-dimensional modeling and building information modeling.

You can find the link here.

Here is the link to Paul Randal’s page on Inside the Storage Engine: Anatomy of a page

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