Mark S. Rasmussen

improve.dk

Mark has worked extensively with SQL Server, primarily focused on performance optimization and internals. Besides SQL Server Mark is also proficient in the Microsoft .NET development stack with a decade of experience.

Fueled by his interest in the nitty-gritty details and feedback from an early presentation, Mark started the OrcaMDF open source project that aims to provide a completely standalone parser for SQL Server MDF files.

Mark is an active member of the Danish community, speaking avidly at local events & user groups and is recognized by Microsoft as a Microsoft Designated Information Provider. Furthermore he blogs actively at http://improve.dk.

Previous Sessions

Revealing the Magic

In this deep(!) dive session. I will walk you through the internal storage format of MDF files. I'll cover how SQL Server stores its own internal metadata, how it knows where to find your data, and how to read it once found.

Knowing the Internals, Who Needs SQL Server Anyway?

Based on my experience in creating OrcaMDF, an open source MDF file parser, I'll go through the primary storage structures, how to parse pages, headers, internal base tables, b-tree structures as well as the supporting IAM, GAM, SGAM and PFS pages.