Database developers and DBAs often play the role of gunslinger, or a hired gunman. Someone brought in to ‘kill’ the bad guy, in this case, an under-performing database. Our tools of the trade are not as dramatic as firearms, but we can do just as much damage.

Ever heard of Angry Birds? In this mobile game, users get various weapons (in the form of Angry Birds) to launch at the naughty piggies.

What are your favorite weapons?

Since @oatmeal gave free and open license to his artwork, I felt obligated as a blogger to borrow them! One of the most challenging things for me as a writer is finding relevant, compelling artwork or themes for my posts. So this blog kind of wrote itself!

Bird Database Tactic
Indexes Everyone LOVES to use indexes. Powerful, easy to deploy. Work on most levels. Take out all the piggies with one shot, and you get bonus points.
Hints Requires great precision. Some people hate them, others love them. Often seem to fly off with little or no effect.
Parallelism Instead of just 1 little annoying bird, how about 3? Perfect for certain levels, seemingly useless on others.
Common Sense There’s no magic with this bird. You need to solve this level by using your head. This is the entry level bird in the game, and it should be your first weapon of choice in the database too. Instead of using some performance hack or undocumented tweak, maybe you just just ask for less data?