And I ask once again… why do people run Oracle? http://www.businessinsider.com/yikes-oracle-issues-emergency-fix-for-a-big-fat-security-problem-2012-1?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business...

I just finished reading this article on NoSQL security. It raised a couple of concerns: 1. Systems require security. Hard stop. no if’s and’s or but’s about it. Designing security from the start is a hard task. At Microsoft there are several practices...

  The presentation and scripts can be found here . Two questions came up which I couldn’t answer on the spot: 1) what is the load precedence of profiles and 2) what PowerShell books would I recommend.   Profile Load Precedence http://msdn.microsoft...

I’ve been blogging here and here about testing Denali CTP3. Here is a recent picture of the SQL Server team – though it’s not everyone on the team. These are the people behind the magic of SQL Server. By downloading Denali CTP3, testing, and filing bugs...

At the end of August we released CTP3 (Community Technology Preview) of the next release of SQL Server codenamed Denali. You can download it here . This is a feature rich CTP and is deserving of your attention, though I can’t discuss where this falls...

Bugs reported by the community have played a huge role in the amazing quality of past releases of SQL Server. In SQL Server 2008 we fixed over 1,000 bugs submitted by the SQL Server community prior to release. And in SQL Server 2008 R2 we fixed over 300...

There’s a great new feature in the next release of SQL Server (codename “Denali”) which integrates the latest product updates into the initial installation experience. This feature came online in the CTP3 release. We need your help testing this feature...

Today is my 13th day in the new job as the community lead for the Business Platform Division. It has been a filled 13 days – in a very good way. I’ve been working closely with my team to get educated on community and to begin to formulate our community...

I was recently talking to a co-worker and I characterized MVPs as evangelists, among other things. I got a very strong reaction - negative. I know full well this posting is going to rub some MVPs the wrong way – like petting a cat against the grain! However...

I spent the first eight years of my career in enterprise IT for a Fortune 15 company. Back then IT was a vibrant work environment. Money was flowing into IT to fund resources, software, hardware and vendors. Today it’s a different story. The mantra for...

We are looking for feedback on three items for SQL Server Code Name “Denali”. First, are the supported OSes . Second, are the supported upgrade paths . Third, is the way the installer handles unsupported OSes and upgrade paths . Specifically we want to...

I’ve seen three basic patterns for handling forgotten web site passwords: Send a change password link to the email address on file Ask one or more challenge questions (or personal information) to unlock the change password screen Send the password, in...

Policy-Based Management (PBM) was introduced with SQL Server 2008 – it’s a declarative system for ensuring the system configuration hasn’t drifted from the original configuration intent.  You can read more about Policy-Based Management in SQL Server...

Caveat: I don’t write code for a living. But I do know how to get things done, usually using brute force. SQLPS.exe is a decent environment, but sometimes I want to work in the default PowerShell environment. But if I want to work with SQL Server in the...

The March 2011 issues of Database Trends and Application has an article that highlights the results of a new survey of DBAs and DBA Managers that reveals complacency results in lax oversight of sensitive information. You can read the article here . While...

I recently botched an answer about why one should use SQL Configuration Manager (SQLCM) over Service Control Manager (SCM) to change service accounts and/or service account passwords for SQL Server. Let me attempt to redeem myself. If your running SQL...

Most people I’ve spoken to have at least heard of the Express edition. The next question I ask is where they’re running it: development or production? The answer is usually both . But when I drill into the production use it turns out that most of the...

How many databases in the world do you think are storing your personal information? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? I have no clue what the answer is but my guess is it’s closer to thousands than tens. Why is this an interesting question? In my line of work...

I often hear people say '”I’m not going to use Microsoft stuff because the don’t want to become victim of vendor lock in.” They often chose “open source” alternatives for pieces of the stack (web server and database to name a few). This isn’t necessarily...

I’m testing out some new stuff and I need your help.Do you have a schema that has a bunch of complex dependencies between objects such that it’s a real pain when you need to alter it – you have to figure out the dependencies, unhook them, make your change...

This year during the PASS Summit we (Microsoft) will be conducting a bunch of focus groups. This is a great opportunity to meet face-to-face with folks from the SQL Server team and impart your knowledge on them. You can find a list of Focus Groups here...

I’ve blogged before on Project “Houston” ( here and here ). at PDC this past week we announced that as part of the Developer Portal refresh Project “Houston” will be known as “Database manager for SQL Azure”. Database manager is a Silverlight client ...

I follow the blog and/or Twitter of many of the SQL Server MVPs and to be blunt this is a truly amazing group of professionals. Their passion for SQL Server is undeniable. Their desire to expand their already deep knowledge of the product is unsurpassed...

Back in SQL Server 2008 my team implemented the Central Management Server (CMS) feature. If you work as part of a DBA team and you haven’t tried it out I encourage you to do so. It’s available on all editions, even Express. In short, the CMS allows you...

This week I had to move a couple of databases between two SQL Azure accounts. I needed to decommission one account and thus get the important stuff out before nuking it. My goal was straight forward: move two databases from one SQL Azure server (and account...