June, 2009

Microsoft is a platform company, meaning that we don't often sell pre-packaged solutions, but rather tools for you to make them. In other words, we sell Microsoft Word, we don't type the letters for you. But in some cases you might like to have a little...

I'm not very good at drawing. My drawings of people and objects with depth usually looks like what your 5th grader does, but not the talented 5th grader. But I found a trick that helps me draw not only depth, but complex things as well. It involves taking...

It is truly remarkable how many things we learn from the ancients - and how much we don't: "Good judgment comes from experience, and experience--well that comes from poor judgment." - Aesop

This script will back up all user databases - you need to change the BWOODY1\SQL2K8 part to your server\instance name, and of course, you should only run this on a test system until you completely understand it. Unfortunately, the SQL Server PowerShell...

When SQL Server "opens" a database, resources are assigned to maintaining that state. Memory for locks, buffers, security tokens and so on is assigned, and there is associated CPU and even a little I/O. When connections are made to the database...

I watched a documentary (of sorts) last night called "Crumbling America" that talked about America's infrastructure issues. They detailed how roads, bridges, electrical grids and water systems are having serious issues and are basically falling...

Before I start this post, let me say that it is not pointed at any one person - if you've asked me for help recently, this isn't about you! The programming and administration computer disciplines are fairly unique, in my mind, in one interesting way:...

Sometimes when things are tight people take fewer chances - but I think that's the very time you should go after the big things: "Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?" - Frank Scully

Schemas are a feature that gained wide use in SQL Server 2005. They are essentially containers that allow some objects to be grouped together. Actually, there have always been schemas in SQL Server, it's just that we only exposed one - called "dbo"...

They say that DBA's are people who put other people into two categories: People who put people into two categories, and people who don't.   I think lots of us put people into categories, not just DBA's.   I've run into a couple of "types"...

I'm writing this on the train to Seattle to visit with a customer this morning - I'm thankful for Wireless! Although setting up a wireless network for a train is a really big thing, sometimes it's the smaller things that make us happy. In SQL Server Management...

I got an e-mail in response to the Best Practices blogs on Filegroups. I've gotten other e-mails similar to this one, so I thought I would answer (or try to) all of them here. Here's the e-mail:   " I recently started a new DBA job.   When...

"I am not ashamed to confess that I am ignorant of what I do not know." -Cicero

The SQL Server team has a quick survey they would like you to take. You don't have to sign up, enter your e-mail or anything else - and it's just sever questions!  It's on new features for web database developers, so if you're one of those, bop on...

In a previous "SQL Server Best Practice" post , I made reference to file layouts and where various file types should go. I got a comment there that I felt deserved another post. The question was: "...7 individual drives? If this is correct do...

This script uses a native client call, so you can use it on any machine that has PowerShell installed along with the SQL Server client software. As always, only run this script on a test system until you understand what it does, and of course you'll need...

There's been some chatter on a few of the newsgroups I subscribe to about backup compression in SQL Server 2008. It seems that some folks are noticing that restoring from a compressed backup actually restores faster than an uncompressed one. This might...

I had a great time in Portland, Oregon on Saturday, where I spoke on using the new features in SQL Server 2008 for Performance Tuning. We covered the new Performance Tracking and Tuning tools in the product, but I focused more on the process for performance...

"My interest is in the future because I'm going to spend the rest of my life there." - Charles F. Kettering

I'll be speaking in Portland, Oregon this Saturday (the 6th) on Using SQL Server 2008 Tools to Tune SQL Server. If you have a chance, definitely stop by. If you're in another state here in the U.S., make sure you check out this site to find the SQL Saturday...

I've been doing a couple of BI discussions lately, and I used a term that I thought was more widely spread - the "clicks" paradigm. It has to do with the way data is pushed out to users - whether that is based on OLAP or OLTP data. A "three...

If you could only change one thing to make a database system faster, what would that be? More memory, faster drives? Better queries, more indexes? Less indexes? Well, I'd spend my one "database wish" here: Don't get what you don't need. I'm constantly...

In a previous post, I mentioned that you should use Filegroups and I talked a little about those. In this post, the best practice I'll point out is where those files should live. As a general rule of thumb, more "spindles" in a database are better...