5 MCM Readiness Indexing Videos You Should Watch

by jasonstrate, posted in Performance Tuning & Tracing, SQL Server, SQLServerSyndication

MCM LogoEarlier this year, I finally passed the Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) for SQL Server 2008 certification.  In the process of preparing for the MCM lab portion, I did a lot of studying.  One of the my key resources, were the MCM Readiness Videos that SQLSkills put together a couple years back.

The thing is, even if you aren’t interested in the MCM, you should still be paying attention to these videos.  They provide some of the best FREE training on SQL Server available.  There are more than 50 videos available, so I thought I would highlight five that dealt with indexing that you should take a loot at…

  1. Indexing Strategies – How do the indexes fit together and what can you expect from them.  The aim for indexes is boost performance, this video shows you how to develop a strategy for that goal.
  2. Index Analysis – Want to know how to figure out if you have the right indexes, this is what this training brings to you.  Also, taking a look at how to determine when you are missing indexes.
  3. Index Internals – Want to know how indexes stored at the physical level.  Maybe a little too nerdy for some, but knowing how it works will let you know why it behaves in certain ways.
  4. The Clustered Index Debate – Looks at the structures available for storing tables and how they interact with non-clustered indexes.  Information on how to know if you have the right, or should have, a clustered index.
  5. Statistics – While not specifically indexing, statistics are the driving force that lets SQL Server know when and what indexes to use.  Poor or out-of-date statistics can make some of the best indexes perform poorly – this video will explain how.

If you are looking for more information on indexing.  May be a few hundred pages about it, you can check out Expert Performance Indexing for SQL Server 2012.  Along with that, for indexing resources from my blog, check out the index resource page.

3 thoughts on “5 MCM Readiness Indexing Videos You Should Watch”

  1. Congrats on the MCM – a major accomplishment, I have my Lab in 5 days! Your comment from an earlier post has peaked my interest: ‘learning that being able to do the work is as important as knowing the answer’…

    Anyway, I just finished reading your white paper on ‘How to Use SQL Server’s Extended Events and Notifications’ and have a question, when going with the extended events methodology, how are you (or would you) push those results to the DBA team like you are using Service Broker and Database Mail for with the Event Notifications?

    I just watched Jonathan Kehayias’ video on ‘SQL Server 2012 Extended Events Enhancements’ where he goes through the new UI for extended events in SQL 2012, and even there it appears you only have the option to push the results to a file or ring buffer. Now you can manually export results to tables and files, but short of writing jobs that query and process the sessions – what’s the best practice to achieve the same results?

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  2. First, congratulations on the huge achievement!.

    Excellent videos. I actually used them when training for the 2008 Admin MCITP. The index ones were excellent and I found the file and database structure ones very interesting as well.

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    1. Thanks, Kenneth. Anyone working with SQL Server should see all of the videos – such great content in them.

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