I’m happy to announce that I’ll be presenting at Microsoft DevCon 2014 in Russia!
While visiting Russia will be a first-time experience for me, the topic I’m presenting on is not. In just 30 minutes I will try to give an overview of not only how SQL Server stores data internally, but also how it keeps track of that data.
Full Abstract
Understanding SQL Server Data Files at the Byte Level
Think SQL Server is magical? You’re right! However, there’s some sense to the magic, and that’s what I’ll show you in this level 500 deep dive session. I will walk you through the internal storage format of MDF files, how we might go about parsing a complete database ourselves, using nothing but a hex editor. I will cover how SQL Server stores its own internal metadata about objects, how it knows where to find your data on disk, and once it finds it, how to read it.