May, 2008

You might have read recently that there have been ongoing SQL injection attacks against vulnerable web applications occurring over the last few months. These attacks have received recurring attention in the press as they pop up in various geographies...

From time to time we get asked if we could extend SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to manage other database platforms. In fact, it's come up here among ourselves, and is the subject of no small debate. As you know, I was a DBA for a long time, and...

There's a new option in in the Tools | Options | Designers area of SQL Server Management Studio in 2008, called Prevent saving changes that require table recreation . What this does is to keep the Database Designer from committing changes to your actual...

I'm not sure if you've noticed the changes on the SQL Server Developer Center on MSDN or SQL Server TechCenter on TechNet. If not, you should definitely check them out. Here are a few highlights: · On the home page of both MSDN and TechNet, you...

http://edge.technet.com/Media/Real-World-DBA-Episode-13--SQL-Server-Features-XML/ This week: In the news, you could win a Windows Home Server, just for evaluating Microsoft products. In this week’s feature, we’ll continue the introduction to...

I've pointed out the "Connect.Microsoft.Com" site before, where you can enter feature requests and bugs for SQL Server. Did you know you can hit that site from within SSMS? Just click the "Community" menu item in SSMS and then "Send Feedback". That will...

Yesterday I spoke about the new T-SQL Debugger. One of the readers wrote and told me that I should mention that this feature isn’t in the February CTP - and they are correct. I should have told you that you will see this very cool feature in the next...

I was working on a SQL Server 2005 system yesterday and I had really awful performance on one of my queries. I just couldn't figure out why it was running slow. I decided to use the new SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Debugger on the code, and sure enough - I found...

As I was giving a demo of the new multi-query capabilities the other day, I was asked how I had four Instances installed on one small, underpowered laptop. In fact, I don't - I have one instance of SQL Server 2005 and one Instance of SQL Server 2008 installed...

http://edge.technet.com/Media/Real-World-DBA-Episode-12--SQL-Server-Features-SSIS/ This week: In the news, Microsoft and Dell have teamed up to provide “out of the box” Business Intelligence systems. In this week’s feature, we’ll continue the...

I was asked the other day what the Microsoft stance is on third-party management applications. We love them! We partner with many vendors to help them provide value in the areas where we don't. Vendors are often able to bring a particular application...

I’ve worked with a few database platforms in my time, most of them in large enterprises. One difference I’ve noticed in the DBA’s on those systems is that they have “pure” DBA’s –meaning that they work primarily with the database platform, not the operating...

Well, this morning I'm feeling a little "under the weather", so I'm working from home. Other than physically attending meetings I'm able to do just about everything else from here, thanks to a VPN, Remote Desktop, and Livemeeting. As I'm sitting here...

TechEd USA is coming up in June, and I'm presenting a couple of times and working the booths. If you're going to be there, make sure you stop by and say hello! You might have to do presentations in your role, whether it is within your group as the...

http://edge.technet.com/Media/Real-World-DBA-Episode-11--SQL-Server-Features--Reporting-Services/ This week: In the news, Microsoft updates the “Script Center”, In this week’s feature, we’ll continue the introduction to SQL Server Features and talk...

"Hey - don't forget about those of us just now switching to SQL Server Management Studio 2005 from SQL Server 2000!" I heard this the other day from a reader of this blog. Don't worry, even though I've been talking about the new improvements we've made...

At the SQL Connections conference in April of 2008 I gave a presentation on some of the new Manageability Improvements for SQL Server 2008. In this blog post I’ll talk about several improvements for SQL Server management Studio (SSMS). This isn...

One of the readers recently asked about the blog post I made regarding the performance of replication being so improved in SQL Server 2008. We don’t have a formal study posted on that particular result yet, but we do have others that talk about speed...

I mentioned in a previous post that I would point out where SQL Server 2008 takes advantage of improvments in Windows 2008 (Check out the "Windows 2008" tag below for that). I just had to share something I got today from the replication team in an e-mail...

http://edge.technet.com/Media/Episode-10-SQL-Server-Features-Analysis-Services/ This week: In the news, Microsoft has announced that the Incremental Service Model will include Service Packs. In this week’s feature, we’ll continue the introduction...

At the SQL Connections conference in April of 2008 I gave a presentation on some of the new Manageability Improvements for SQL Server 2008. In this blog post I’ll talk about a New improvement for SQL Server management Studio (ssms). This feature...