Bob Duffy's Blobby Blog

I've just about finished transferring must of the old Virtual server images to Hyper-V on some of them, the Network card was lost with the "Virtual machine Bus" not being updated in Device Manager. Effectively it had not somehow skipped HAL...

Dan Jones gives a sneak preview of the sexy new management features in "Kilimanjaro"due in 2010. This is very cool stuff for anyone who needs to manage and deploy enterprise application in a SQL "fabric". http://edge.technet.com/Media...

One of the biggest complaints about SSIS is the lack of performance when reading or writing to Oracle and Teradata. There isn't much support for bulk methods that are really needed to load data quickly. The recently released SSIS connectors licensed from...

I'm delivery the SQL Academy session on Upgrading to SQL 2008 this Thursday (4th December) - just before Kimberly's session at the SQL Users Group. Topics are: - Upgrading to SQL 2008 Tools and Planning. - Upgrade Scenarios: Mirroring, Clustering, ...

Just in case anyone isn't aware - Kimberly Tripp is back to Dublin this Thursday - 4th December at the SQL Users Group. The session is on optimising and scaling stored procs - details are here http://www.sql.mtug.ie/Events/EventInfo.aspx?ID=166a7fcc-6003...

Sorry no blog posts for a while. I have been pretty busy getting my hands dirty on some projects and helping out with the SQL 2008 Academy here in Dublin. I've just been upgrading the Infrastructure at Prodata here to Windows 2008 and Hyper-V with a view...

I'll be delivering a whole day on Business Intelligence for the SQL Server 2008 Academy in Dublin on Thurs 13th November (next week) I'm trying to squeeze about a weeks worth of content into one day, so I guarantee that no-one will go home without picking...

In case anyone missed the acquisition: Microsoft acquired DATAllegro back in July. Press is here http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/jul08/07-24DataWarehousingPR.mspx This means that we potentially have a customer with a 400+ TB database , and...

Anyone on the database scene would have noticed a big surge in SQL Injection attacks around April this year. Developers coming cap in hand to the DBA to blame the database for a security breach and all that... Hopefully everyone knows what SQL injection...

If you are a TechNet or MSDN customer (and who isn't!), you can download the final RTM of SQL Server 2008 here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ie/subscriptions/default(en-us).aspx Personally I am really stoked about this release - I'm going to be involved...

Paul Randall and Kimberly Tripp are probably the foremost speakers on SQL Server and they are coming to Dublin. On Thursday 4th September, 2008 they are coming to Dublin to present at the SQL Users Group on Indexing and Fragmentation (Level 400). If you...

One of the changes in SQL 20005 is that the default value of Max Worker Threads has changed from 255 to zero, meaning that SQL Server now automatically determines the optimum number of threads. You can determine the maximum number of threads SQL Server...

I've taken the plunge and installed Windows 2008 64-bit on my laptop after a re-imaging "opportunity" caused by IpSec and dogfooding a pre-release of some software that will remain nameless. So far my trusty Dell 820 is working pretty well....

Out last written exam tomorrow!!! There was definitely a sense of the end of a long journey when we finished the last class today (VLDB scenario). I don't think people will be jumping for the pub on Friday as everyone will be flopping down in bed ;-)...

I thought I would post some clarification on what the famous "Lock Pages in Memory" policy setting does and does not do. 1. It prevents the operating system from stealing the buffer pool (see previous blog on buffer pool), thus shrinking the...

After the third exam, we only had a few sessions today and then carting for the first down time some people have had in a while. Ken the Instructor and veteran SQL ranger from rotation 01 kicked some butt on the track. I was in his slipstream (err if...

OK I'm on a roll here blogging as my brain is full up on the MCA course. Here's a good tip on how to calculate the MAX_SERVER_MEMORY a) calculate worker threads (assuming set correctly, as default max 255 may be too low for huge beasts) select max_workers_count...

I have a little picture below to show how memory is broken up in the SQL Server Working set. Some key Myths to dispel: a) The Max Memory Setting only sets the target memory for the buffer pool not for the whole of SQL Server working set. So do not set...

Exam #3 at the SQL Ranger course is tomorrow and a few of the candidates and Instructors have spoken about the huge pressure on Candidates. Most people come from a community where they ARE the SQL experts and highest authority. Their managers, co-workers...

I have been doing a great course with Paul Randal on disaster recovery for SQL Server. He has a great blog on just about everything to do with DBCC and disk structures and recovery. See http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/default.aspx Here is a little...

I've just survived week 3 of the SQL Ranger Rotation 04 here in Redmond. Whats its been like: a break neck sprint through level 300-500 content on SQL nearly every aspect of SQL. Man I thought I was good on SQL Server until Paul Randal started explaining...

There is a new white paper available on managing SQL Server for MOSS environments. http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=111531&clcid=0x409 Great tips on Index defragging and use of DBCC. One thing that I'm not sure I entirely agree with is the adding...

I'll be off to the states for the four week MCA:Database training. http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/architect/database/default.mspx Speaking to people who have been on the course before this is really exciting. We get to spend four weeks in training...

Sorry I've been off the radar a while. I've been working as a Solution Architect on a large telco solution. I'm very happy with the results, We managed to make good use of lots of SQL Server programmability features such as XML, service broker, SQL CLR...

When moving to SQL 2005 from 2000, some customers are asking what real benefit 64 bit brings. The short answer is : - 64 bit is the future - rumours are abound that future releases of SQL Server might not even have a 32 bit sku (except developer editions...