Where Do I Want To Go Today? - Real Time Defragging
Taking a note from Microsoft's own page, I've decided to share some of my wishes for where I want SQL Server to go. Today.
Meaning this is what I'm looking for now, the things that I'd like to see implemented in future releases. Now I missed the Yukon preview and haven't read too terribly much on it, so I may be asking for something that's coming. If it's not under NDA, let me know.
Otherwise I hope to get some feedback about whether you'd like to see this feature or not. Or maybe you've got something I've forgotten on this feature. Either way let me know. I've got a few and I'm splitting them up to keep comments focused on this one feature. If you've got a wish, send it to me with a description. I'll credit you (if you want) and add my comments before dropping it out there in front of everyone.
Real Time Defrag
Who worries about fragmented indexes? Who has maintenance jobs to rebuild clustered indexes? Who checks for fragmentation?
Probably quite a few of you and if you're raising your hand, put it down. You're co-workers are looking at you kind of strangely right now.
I'd like to see a real-time, online, always running defragmenter. Move a page at a time, maybe 2, run in the background, constantly as another system process. It wouldn't cause much load, heck, by the time that Microsoft releases this, Moore's law will have jumped another couple generations. Having something like this running all the time would probably reduce downtime substantially, keep systems running smoother, make SQL Server look like an even better value than it is now.
Don't get me wrong, there are still times when we need this to be manually kicked off. But for OLTP systems where you don't want much downtime and processes fail, DBAs forget to run tasks, etc, having this occurring constantly would slightly raise the noise level and could substantially improve performance.
Enhancements? Sure, let me prioritize tables, pick a level of defragmentation, even limit it to certain tables. But set it up and let it run.
All the time.
Take another thing off my plate.
Other items in this series:
Steve Jones
©dkRanch.net May 2003