Steve Jones, a friend of mine over at sqlservercentral.com, asked me a question the other day that is brought up quite a bit. In earlier versions of SQL Server, we had at least two management tools: Enterprise Manager (EM) and Query Analyzer (QA). EM...

It seems that life is all about shortening concepts into three-letter acronyms (TLAs). Every place I've ever worked, from the military to NASA, just loves to create short, catchy names for technical terms. Ah well. The current TLA in vogue is "TCO...

Plenty. With the release of Halo 3 this week, lots of buzz has been given to the stunning graphics and gameplay. But games like Halo have a lot more to do with Management Tools than you might think. In a game situation, especially mulit-player versions...

What is the "best" solution for a management tool for SQL Server? If you ask a pure DBa (those technical professionals concerned primarily only with system administration from a database standpoint) you'll get a different answer than you will from a data...

This script counts all of your objects in the database, at least the ones stored in the sysobjects table. Some objects (such as jobs) don't show up there - one day I'll add those: /* usc_DBA_Count_Objects.sql Author: Buck Woody Purpose: Shows a quick...

Well, it's the final day of the conference. I have had a fantasitc time, learned a ton of new things, and got to present to one of best group of technical professionals I've ever met. Let me tell you some of the takeaways I got by talking to people...

I love these things - and my friends over at SimpleTalk have a free one: http://www.simple-talk.com/prettifier/

Yesterday Ted Kummert (who is the VP in charge of SQL Server for Microsoft) made a bunch of really key announcements about SQL Server 2008 at the keynote: - There will be no price increase for SQL Server 2008 - Dell and Microsoft are working together...

I really enjoy coming to conferences. It's hard work, but there is just no better place to meet people who use our product that have strong opinions and time to talk about them. Yesterday was mostly setup and preparation for my presentation today,...

I've flown down to Denver, Colorado this week to work the booths and do a few presentations here at PASS, the Professional Association of SQL Server. This is a community group, so as a Microsoft employee I'm a guest at this function. I've mentioned before...

You may have had the problem where you move a database from one server to another and lose the ability for the users to log in. This happens because the SID values in the master database don't match the SID values in the user database, even if the same...

There's a lot of work to do here. I'm sure you could say the same thing, with all the demands that are made on your time. At Microsoft it's common to have multiple big tasks going at one time, and as a Program Manager that's actually my job. But if you...

There are lots of these out on the web, so here's the one I've used for years - Thanks, Joseph! /* usc_Show_Last_Backup.sql Author: Joseph Sack (6/13/2000) Edited By: Buck Woody Purpose: Shows the last time the databases were backed...

In an earlier post I mentioned how we create the initial ideas for our software features. This may be a different process than you've seen at other software shops. Another big difference in the way the SQL Server organization does things is how we implement...

We've used two major system management paradigms for SQL Server: The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) and the Visual Studio shared components. In early versions of SQL Server, we had Enterprise Manager for most management tasks from a graphical standpoint...

One of the most frustrating things to deal with is trying to find technical information on a product, and running into marketing documents instead. Actually, I've run into the other situation as well - I want marketing information to back up some buying...

Back when I worked in the User Education group as a content developer, I wrote an entry in this blog that described how we put documentation and other information together for SQL Server. I thought I would follow that up now that I’m in a new group and...

One of the advantages with placing the Management Studio for SQL Server in the Visual Studio shell is the ability to float the windows, pin them, and generally move them around. But sometimes you can get yourself into a situation where everything is pretty...

You can find the latest release of SQL Server 2008 in a convenient Microsoft Virtual Machine format here: · Microsoft Connect SQL Server · Microsoft Download Center Enjoy!

I don't remember where I got this function, but I needed it for a distributed system where I needed a standard time unit. I'm sure there are other ways to do this, but this worked out for me: /* fn_ConvertToUTC.SQL Convert local time to UTC Author...

It's that time again - with all the storms brewing in the various tropics and fall approaching here in the Northwest of the US, we should all check our Disaster Recovery (DR) plans. I used to live in Florida, and during my many years there I faced several...