The Heap™ – Consultancy ©®

7:42 AM

3 hours later…

10:42 AM

Another crap question in vote to ...

2 hours later…

12:33 PM

I have a question about how to tell when I should stick to using run-time queries to pull data, and when I should store the data in another table and query that table instead. Would something like this be on-topic for this site?

@Rachel Yes, questions about performance (and other) implications of denormalised data are perfectly on-topic for this site.

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells Alright thanks, I wasn't sure if a question like that was too simple or just requires common sense that I'm missing this early in the morning..

@Rachel Litmus test for 'too simple' is something like 'Should an average PHP developer be able to guve a nuanced answer to this question?

Q: How can I identify when to create a new table to hold data that can be obtained from a query?

We have a payment table, and agents get commission on payments. Commission is based on a few different factors, such as how long it took to get the payment, so there is some calculations involved when figuring out the commission rate the agent gets, but nothing obscenely complex. For example, it...

12:55 PM

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells Thanks for your answer. Is how often the query is run the only factor you use in determining if you should create a new table to hold the data or not?

@Rachel How up do date does the data have to be? Would it be acceptable to do a nightly refresh of the data and show commission as of midnight ?

It'll probably be OK to have a nightly job updating it, although up-to-date is always preferred, particularly if we give agents access to the report (at this time, the plan is to give them an EOM report, but they might change that in the future)

@Rachel I's say this will be an order of magnitude less work than trying to do an up to date denormalised structure. You're far better off going with that unless there is a genuine requirement with a business case as opposed to an 'I want a pony' level nice-to-have.

Given that a nightly run of the reporting table is no different from a monthly one, and gives a reasonably up-to-date view of the commission, I'd say it's probably the sweet spot for this in terms of trade-off of effort vs. functionality.

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells Ok, thanks :)

1:16 PM

@Rachel See my comment about how up to date the data has to be for the report.

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells Can I edit your question to add a summary of those 3 things? :)

@COTW it's only minimally logged if it's not on full recovery mode

1:34 PM

@Rachel Do you have enough karma to?

@Gonsalu Even in tempdb?

tempdb isn't fully logged

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells Nope, it says it has to be peer-reviewed first

@ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells " 'I want a pony' level nice-to-have" <--- adds to list to make meetings more interesting

@Rachel Yes, I saw that. I approved it; probably needs some more votes.

Priority levels:
1. Business critical - needed for continuity
2. Significant - causes operational issues with expensive workarounds or constrains the business from implementing planned changes.
3. Minor - workaround is undesirable but does not cause major operational problems.
4. Nice to have - wanted for process improvement but not required for current operations
5. I want a pony - also a lamborghini and a house on the riviera.

dba.stackexchange.com/questions/15856/… Am i going insane there, or is my comment valid?

1:47 PM

@Phil The OP's question is sufficiently incoherent that it's hard to tell.

please make this work kthxbye

sprinkles magic fairy dust on it

@Phil I gotta get me some that. Is that a bit like 'agile process?'

I've come up with an awesome name for it. "Scrum". It'll fix all ills!

ypercube

@Phil: Your comments should be an answer

3 hours later…

ypercube

5:22 PM

I tried to sign up for a Microsoft conference (that has a presentation about SQL-Server 2012) and I'm forced to register for "Windoes Live ID" ...