I do love me some good-looking code. Sure, the syntax has to be there, and the code has to be correct and all that, but I'm old-school, and I think pretty code is easier to read. I'd love to have a "code beautifier" built right in to SQL Server...

I had a ready respond to my post yesterday via e-mail. He asked why I didn't have "Anonymous" comments enabled on the blog, and told me that I would get a lot more responses if I did. And he is correct - I did have the settings on this blog...

I think half of what I do as a DBA is "spelunking" - exploring the situation at hand to see what the real problem is. Nine times out of ten, the thing that was presented to me isn't the thing I end up working on. So where do you start with this...

Most of us design a "CRUD" (Create, Read, Update and Delete) matrix for an application's database. And if you are really thorough, you create a data dictionary that shows what data goes where and why. The problem with these documents is that...

I just finished reading the latest version of PowerShell Unleashed last night. Although there are some really great chapters (like the discussion on security), I don't recommend this book as your first introduction to PowerShell. To be fair, the authors...

If you write apps that hit a database that you own, then you probably want version control on the database itself. I always script out the initial database, and version that script. I also script the changes, and version those, and then script the entire...

I deal with a lot of folks that are going through server consolidation exercises. These days everyone immediately thinks of Virtualization - which will consolidate servers onto a single instance. But in many cases it's actually smarter to evaluate the...

The new poster is here! The new Poster is here!  Get your's while they are hot: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=531c53e7-8a2a-4375-8f2f-5d799aa67b5c&displaylang=en

Because, hey, they have such a great track record, right?   "We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way through Congress." -- Will Rogers

I had a discussion the other day with someone who had some questions about Enterprise Edition of SQL Server 2008. In many cases, I've seen someone not using the "right size" of SQL Server. Many installations really call for Enterprise Edition...

The other day I made a post that mixed a couple of concepts. I mentioned that you should always use a separate set of Windows accounts for the SQL Server Engine and Agent services. I also mentioned security ramifications. The fact that the SQL Server...

Another one of my favorite quotes comes from Warren Buffet - I think about it every time I start a new project: "Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing. " -- Warren Buffet

I read a lot of blogs, as I’m sure you do. Many of them lately tell me about the author’s New Year’s resolutions – and I’m sure those are important. But I don’t think you care about mine. Neither do I. In fact, as a...

Just got back (late last night) from our Florida vacation. I really miss "home" - Safety Harbor, Florida - and while I was there I saw a quote from my favorite author, Isak Denison: "Anything can be cured with Saltwater - Tears, Sweat,...

When I'm asked what the least-used feature of SQL Server is, I often have to reply that it is "good security". Many installations take all the default settings, and most use programmatic security rather than the features built in to SQL Server...

If you have encrypted columns in a database or certificates used to create them, you need to make sure that you back up the Database Master Key as part of your maintenance, and then protect that backup file. Here's the short version of the command: BACKUP...

Computer technology has been a fixture of business now for several decades - but I'm not sure it's a "mature" industry yet. Sure, we have a few standards, and some dominant vendors and a strong workforce - all earmarks of a mature industry ...

If you're using the PowerShell provider for SQL Server, you can quickly script out all of the objects in a "directory" using a simple method. Just navigate to the directory of objects you're interested in, say the "Views" of a certain...

Most people know a lot - but they could know a lot more: "Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your mouth is moving." -- My Mother

I'm going to standardize a bit - or at least try - in this blog. On Monday's I'll share something new that I've learned to do with PowerShell - sometimes with the PowerShell Provider for SQL Server 2008, and sometimes just using PowerShell and the SMO...

I spoke at the Pacific Northwest SQL Server User Group last night, and we covered Performance tuning. I promised to blog a script that uses the "query_stats" DMV and a CROSS APPLY to find the top queries - there are lots of these on the web, so here's...

The last (incredibly long) election was touted as being all about "change". I think with all the news today, people are finding out that not all change is good change - but it is in fact inevitable: "Change is the price of survival"...