VLDB and Code Central

The Winter Corporation recently released a report describing the world's largest and most heavily used databases called the 2005 Winter TopTen Program.  The Program is a bit flawed in that it is monitored through a self-nominating process.  So there could be plenty of SQL Server databases out there that are even bigger than those in the report but whose owners chose to keep them secret. 

You can witness the strong position that SQL Server has attained by popping over to http://lists.sqlmag.com/t?ctl=14F28:7B5CC.  The Winter Report isn't a performance report in the same sense as the TPC benchmarks (http://www.tcp.org) are.  But it's still a valid measurement for the sort of real-world applications that major organizations are able to build and deploy.  In some ways, this is a stronger validation of a database platform than is the TPC benchmark since the TPC benchmarks can be fudged in many ways to achieve better numbers that no sane IT group would ever do.  (If you don't believe me, please take a little time to read the vendor disclosures on the TPC site!) 

And now for something completely different -

If you're eternally and unapologetically lazy like me, then you love to find useful scripts written by someone else that you can reuse.  Well, the fine folks at Windows IT Pro have created a new searchable repository of scripts and code for all sorts of situations on Microsoft Windows, including SQL Server.  Check out the goodies at http://lists.sqlmag.com/t?ctl=15BD9:7B5CC .Cheers!

-Kevin