The Hammer

Essential for developments of all shapes & sizes

  • Ten Free SQL Server Tools that you Need to Know About

    Hello, I’m happy to see that the buzz word “Free” did not fail to attract readers. NEVER FEAR! You will not leave this post disappointed. I’m not going to try and do a better job than John Sansom has already done but I felt that this information needed to be widely distributed. On that note, […]

  • Deadlocks – Querying Extended Events

    Background The days of restarting SQL Service with trace flags 1204 or 1222 (MSDN Detecting and Ending Deadlocks) or being forced to start up a profiler trace are no more. Let’s face it. There are times when someone comes up to you and says, “hey we got a handful of deadlocks an hour ago can […]

  • File Server crashes on a Windows Cluster with SQL Server 2008 – event 1587 and 1069

    Today I’m happy to be able to relay some troubleshooting information that I found extremely difficult to find on the internet. Partly because the symptoms don’t present themselves in a manner that easy leads to the real issue. Cluster Explanation: This cluster has: 5 nodes of mismatched hardware in both CPU and Memory. 7 SQL […]

  • Poll – How do you handle security?

    MS SQL Server provides a wide range of options to choose from when deciding how to regulate security in our organizations? I’m curious how you handle it? Do you go full on best practice and run Windows Authentication only, allow service account and security groups only, and define user roles with granular permissions to apply […]

  • Temporary Stored Procedures

    We are all familiar with table variables, local temp tables, and global temp tables but what some people over look is that stored procedures and functions can also utilize tempdb. I imagine that the reason for this oversight is because it can be difficult to think of a use for it. To be honest, in […]

  • Optimizing the BACKUP Command

    One challenge for a DBA is to setup the appropriate backup plans for the databases under our responsibility. It is easy to use SSMS’s maintenance plans to get the job done or even just write a simple BACKUP DATABASE command and pop it into a SQL Agent job but as databases grow their needs become […]

  • Bug: INSERTing into a MySQL Database via Linked Server

    Recently I found myself involved in a project where a tab delimited text file (updated daily) was being imported into a MS SQL Server 2008 R2 database and then the single imported table was manipulated into a handful of others in a completely different format. This was done to stage the data in a manner […]

  • Bug: Local View + Synonym + Remote Query

    Recently I came across an interesting bug when upgrading a SQL Server 2000 box to 2008 R2. With SQL Server 2005, 2008, and 2008 R2, there is a situation where you are calling a local view that is also using a synonym and accessing a remote table and then the remote table’s index is rebuilt. […]

  • Detach and Attach User Databases

    The Need I’ve found myself, more times than once, needing to change disk drives that my user databases are found on. This could come up because you are moving a server and need to switch SANs, migrate from local storage to SAN storage, or need to move to a new LUN because it was over […]

  • SQL Server 2008 R2 – Service Pack 2

    Quick Announcement: I just wanted to throw a quick announcement out that SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2 is available. Service Pack 2 includes Cumulative Updates 1 through 5 from SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 and is registered as version # 10.50.4000.0. You can see a complete list of bugs fixed by this SP in KB2630458. Downloads: […]