Keeping up with new features of SQL Server can be a challenge. What is even more challenging, though, is keeping up with changes to existing features. Re-reading Microsoft books online is tedious and differences between versions are not always easy…
The standard backup strategy seems to always include backups running at midnight, hoping that they complete before anyone starts using the applications. There is value in performing maintenance on off-hours. However, many applications do not have off-hours or our databases grow…
Author Bio: Priyanka Chouhan is a technical writer in Stellar Data Recovery with 5 years of experience and has written several articles on SQL server & SharePoint. In her spare time she loves reading and gardening. Identifying and handling blocked processes in SQL…
Today I’d like to recommend a free community tool, StatisticsParser.com. Statistics Parser is web-based tool for interpreting the text output of the T-SQL SET STATISTICS IO and TIME settings. The tool was created and is maintained by Richie Rump (b…
Here are two snippets that I use often to search for objects on a variety of servers. The first will search any object within a database and the second will search various elements of SQL Agent jobs. Object search USE…
After you provision a Microsoft Azure VM with SQL Server there are a few more steps that you need to take to make remote connections. The procedure below starts with a fresh Azure VM provisioned and walks through the process…
Another amazing PASS Summit week is complete and I am sitting in SEA-TAC airport, waiting for my flight back to the east coast (at the time I wrote this). I am going to hop on the red-eye in about an…
Quick Tip: Counting NULLs and sub-sets of data You have been asked to produce a chart which will visualize a few data points. Total work orders. Total closed work orders (work orders with EndDate populated). Total open work orders (work…
Beginning with SQL Server 2008, local administrators are no longer SQL Server sysadmins by default. Microsoft removed this feature in an attempt to increase security. I agree with the change. The principle of least privilege would imply that even system administrators…
Last week I involved in a conversation with some SQL professionals who are also skilled with PowerShell. The SQL Server community is used to having a tool to connect them directly to gurus who are dedicated to helping others, the…