Rebuilding SQL Database Indexes

A few months ago I wrote a blog post titled “Don’t Forget About Index Maintenance on Azure SQL Database“. Since then, Microsoft Azure SQL Database has changed a lot. We aren’t as concerned about the size of the database anymore, because databases can reach 500 GB in size. Take a moment to think about that number. 500GB is a lot of data! Before you get excited and move on to more important things, ask yourself this question, does all that data really belong in my SQL Database? Put some thought into it, you may be surprised by the answers you come up with.

Benefit of Using Directories in Windows Azure Blob Storage Service

I’ve been playing around with Windows Azure Blob Storage Service for a while now and I have noticed that using directories greatly facilitates debugging and maintenance.

Imagine a Container that contains 400 000 block blobs. The Windows Azure tools in Visual Studio 2012 allow you to list 100 000 blobs. When this limit is reached you are notified and there is nothing you can do to continue listing. At that moment you can use other tools like CloudBerry Explorer and Azure Management Studio. Both tools will allow you to browse the full list of blobs.

Listing 100 000 takes a considerable amount of time. Visual Studio lists blobs as a flat list, which isn’t very useful when you surpass 1000 blobs. CloudBerry Explorer and Azure Management Studio allow you to browse by directory.