Last week I ran into an argument I’ve had since I left the mainframe space decades ago. A developer told me “DBA’s don’t design databases.” The inference was that DBA’s (i.e., Database Administrators) only worry about hardware, security, OS, database...

Yesterday was Thanksgiving here in the U.S. – a time not just for family, rest and food, but most supremely of giving thanks. We give thanks to God and to each other for the infinite blessings we share. No matter what we think we have need of, that which...

Licensing. Sometimes it feels like to you need a specialized degree, a black robe and a secret handshake to really understand it – but it’s not quite that bad. There are several licensing “models”, from just buying SQL Server off the shelf to Software...

I have scripts that re-create my databases for testing and development purposes. But sometimes I want to take the data from a set of tables and move it as well – I could use SSIS, or a SELECT INTO statement, but what if I want to “re-set” the data to...

Yesterday I blogged about changing a Primary Key (PK) during the design phase, and before you have data in the database. Even then, it’s not trivial to change the data type or column(s) that make(s) up the PK. When you have data in that Primary Key and...

In my class this week, the students went through the inserts, updates and deletes that they had created for their database design, and then the moment of truth – creating the queries that answer the questions from the requirements. It’s often at this...

I try to live by this every day: “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.” – Charles Dickens

Yesterday I posted a header from a script that shows you some links for how to use “Logman”, a Windows command-line utility that can automate your collection of Windows Performance Monitor counters. Towards the bottom, you can see the logman command I...

I held a workshop on performance tuning in Portland, Oregon yesterday, and as part of that I mentioned a process I follow for automatically collecting Performance Monitor Counters for a system. I use this data to store a baseline and then subsequently...

I’m leading a Performance Tuning workshop here in Portland, Oregon today, and I normally start this kind of workshop with a segment on “pre-tuning” – or, the steps you take so that you don’t have to tune as much later. When we set up a system is the greatest...

A few days ago I posted a way to look at the Dynamic Management Views (DMV’s) using a query, which I then copy and paste into the Help viewer’s Index tab to learn more. Well, my good friend and Colleague, Cliff, pointed out that I was using the older...

No, this isn’t about third normal form or anything like that: “Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.” - Unknown

I had an interesting question the other day, so I thought I would share both the question and the answer. We had an older application that had stored an XML document in a table as a binary data type column. I know, I know – we’ve had an XML data type...

I’ve pointed out this link before, and I’ll definitely bring it up again. Microsoft is one of the few companies I know, especially the big ones, that explains how they run their IT. We have a fantastic, I mean really fantastic site that you should definitely...

I teach a class at the University of Washington, and in that class I have the students create a few Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs). I’m still looking for a decent tool to do that, since the only ones I know that do a good job are WAY too expensive...

I showed a demo of how to find the top ten tables in the database at the PASS Conference. Here’s that script – you’ll need to fix the server name, instance name, and database name. You can use this to display any numbers – and even more. The mind reels...

I’ve been at the PASS conference this week, and I’ve been around a lot of really smart Experts – and this definition definitely fits: An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in their subject, and how to avoid them. ...

I’m at PASS this year, and one of the things I’ve learned this time is that I can learn from – the vendors!  Most of the “big” names are here, like Idera, Redgate, Quest, and more, but I ran into some folks yesterday I hadn’t spoken with before ...

This morning I showed how I find DMVs, and find out how to use them. First, I just run this query:   USE MASTER; GO SELECT ‘sys.’ + name FROM sys.sysobjects WHERE name LIKE ‘dm%’   Then I copy and paste a result into the “Index” panel of Books...

I’m here at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) this week, and I’m here in the keynote. A few days ago I ranted about the fact that DBA should be a Data Professional – not an administrator. I’ve heard a lot of response about that blog ...

I have Windows 7 on my laptop, and I also teach, demo and use SQL Server 2005 and SQL server 2008. Should I install this “native” on my outside operating system or use the Virtual PC (VPC) software that comes with Windows 7? Well, there are arguments...