Microsoft’s release of SQL 2014 might seem like it was an April fool’s joke, but they were quite serious with their general release of SQL 2014 on April 1st 2014. While there are many high-availability enhancements, and OLTP changes for in-memory operations (all of which are interesting), I would like to highlight some of the […]

A Very Fond Farewell
As we look towards the coming warm weather, and the change in the seasons, I am looking forward to a change in my professional life as well. Before I look forward, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the 8+ years of a fantastic journey that has prepared me to take this next […]

Redshift Economics
There has been much discussion in other blogs and other media about the economies of scale that Amazon is bringing to the market, making large scale computing available at a cost that has impressed many. The cost structure for their Redshift product appears to be no different. Based on the current costs, I have put […]

So what is a column store anyway?
When you think of a database you very naturally think in terms of rows and columns, so a column store is just a different way of saying the same thing… right?… well kind-of… you still access the data in the same ways by asking the same kinds of questions, but the physical layout is quite […]
Getting Started with Amazon Redshift – Sample Chapter
Here is a preview of one of the chapters (available at PacktPub):

And the book is…
“Getting Started with Amazon Redshift” As I have been hinting about in a few posts, I have been busy working on a book. Now that there is something to see, I wanted to share some details about the project. It all came about a few months ago with an invitation from the publisher to put […]

How big is your data?
I will not take credit for the here, it is something I ran across, but struck me as so very appropriate for the topic I have been beating the drum about since my post about zetabyte storage needs. It is with those “extreme” storage needs that you need to build and design today’s […]
What does that checkbox do? (Redshift Encryption)
**EDIT** I don’t normally go back and edit things in a prior post… but… in this case the additional link to Werner Vogels blog that came out after I wrote this is worthwhile to the topic at hand. **EDIT** As I alluded to in the prior post, I have been busy… I have actually been busy […]
More blog-posts to come…
I know in my last post, I indicated there would be more blog posts shortly on Amazon Redshift. Those posts are coming… this is not that post… (sorry). My bog-posts have taken a short detour, that in the coming weeks will become more clear. For now, know that I have not forgotten you!… I will […]
“Big Data” with Amazon Redshift – Intro
If you have been following along on my blog, you have seen the various technical and other ramblings for my recent R&D efforts around “Big Data”. A little while ago I wrote about giving Amazon a try which I still believe is true… and long those lines, am now giving Amazon Redshift (their new entry […]