May 27, 2011 09:29 GMT  ·  By

The SQL Server Compression Estimator is a tool designed to help IT professionals apply data compression to the data bases they administer.

Offered free of charge via CodePlex, SQL Server Compression Estimator has been released under an open source license, allowing customers to also contribute to its evolution.

Fathered by Bob Taylor, from the ISV Enablement Team at Microsoft, SQL Server Compression Estimator is up to version 1.0.3.0, with the latest update fixing some issue discovered by one of the users.

“One of the most exciting additions to SQL Server 2008 was the capability to apply data compression. The benefits are many including reduced disk I/O and memory utilization, with a small cost of CPU overhead,” Taylor stated.

“In a database that may contain thousands of objects, determining which objects and / or partitions of those objects may benefit from data compression can be time consuming and labor intensive.”

This is precisely the scenario where IT pros should turn to SQL Server Compression Estimator Tool.

According to Taylor, leveraging the solution can help reduce the overall size and optimize a SQL Server database. Of course, such optimization will only end up paying off in terms of the added benefits enumerated above.

“SQL Server Compression Estimator (SSCE) will allow you to estimate the best compression for your objects,” Taylor stated.

“It will estimate both ROW and PAGE compression, and will optionally report the Index Maintenance Ratio (a ratio that indicates how often an index is updated versus how often it is used to satisfy queries). You can then use that information to perhaps choose a less aggressive compression algorithm for heavily updated indexes.”

On the CodePlex site reserved for the SQL Server Compression Estimator Tool, customers will be able to find now only the download links, but also additional documentation and even the source code for the tool.

The SQL Server Compression Estimator Tool is available for download here.