See Also: Architecture & Configuration - VLDB

Administering and designing Very Large Databases (VLDBs) requires a slightly more advanced skill set than managing smaller databases. Every decision must be planned out carefully in advance with attention paid to the possible impact.

Very Large Database Storage Design Articles

• Partitioning - partitioning helps a database scale up by breaking a table out into several pieces that can be stored on different sets of drives.
• Indexing for Partitioned Tables - a table's primary key and its indexes can use different partitioning functions. Michelle Ufford explains when to use partitioning for indexes.
• Database Compression Stored Proc Samples from SQLServerBible.com - Paul Nielsen provides sample scripts you can use to quickly compress all objects in your database.
• Configuring Instant File Initialization - article at MSSQLTips.com explaining how to grow your data files instantly. Keep in mind that this only works with data files, not log files.
• SQL Server 2008 R2 Preview: Project Madison - Microsoft's sneak peek at scale-out options in the next version of SQL Server.

VLDB Backup and Maintenance Articles

• Restoring File/Filegroup Backups - restoring a multi-terabyte database takes time. With proper planning, you can restore the primary filegroup first, and then bring on more filegroups one at a time even as people query the primary one.
• VLDB Maintenance Best Practices - Kimberly L. Tripp and Paul Randal came up with this helpful list of things you should do to protect your very large database.
• Consistency Checking Options for a VLDB - Paul Randal blogs about how to run DBCC on a large database.

VLDB Performance Tuning Articles

• Find Indexes Not In Use - in very large databases, it's crucial to eliminate any indexes that aren't being used. Less indexes mean less writes during data loads, shorter backup times, shorter DBCC times, and less index defragmentation time.
• Degrees of Parallelism (MAXDOP) - SQL Server can use multiple threads to process a query - but should you?
• Microsoft SQLCAT Article on Parallelism - MAXDOP is an important setting for data warehouses and VLDBs.