I recently was asked about licensing SQL Server in the following two scenarios that may be confusing at times Can i only license a portion of the physical processors for SQL Server by restricting SQL Server’s usage of the processors by using the...

This is a FAQ and I recently collected information based on some available resources: The following Books-online topic talks about the in-built SQL Server tools to collect performance data so you can create a baseline and also identify performance issues...

Microsoft released a reference architecture to build a Private Cloud to consolidate your database environment, for details refer to: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/solutions-technologies/cloud-computing/private-cloud.aspx We will also be releasing...

I am including the below podcast link from MSDN Broadcaster about SQL Azure – check it out: What does "IT as a Service" Mean in Regard to SQL Azure? Explains how SQL Azure enables you to provide a database platform as a service.

This is a great tool for you to search for relevant information on Microsoft properties all aggregated to single convenient location. The Microsoft Desktop Player delivers contextual content aggregated across Microsoft properties that is mapped to an...

I am going to start using MSDN Broadcaster to start publishing content to this blog, if you are a blog writer you should definitely try this service out, it is amazing: www.microsoftbroadcaster.com Microsoft Broadcaster enables  IT Pro and Developer...

SQL Server 2008 introduces File Stream data type that lets you store BLOB data in an efficient manner. One of the issues with this data type is there is no easy way to do space management. What happens if you run out of space on the drive that you designated...

SQL Server provides various options for interoperating with Oracle 1) SSIS - Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS) is a platform for building high performance data integration solutions, including extraction, transformation, and load ...

  Engine and algorithm improvements: To improve the accuracy and stability of some predictions in time series models, a new algorithm has been added to the Microsoft Time Series algorithm. Based on the well-known ARIMA algorithm, the new algorithm...

 

Here is a slide deck I recently used to discuss using SQL Server in a virtual environment:  

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/dataservices/default.mspx

Issue: 4 instances of SQL Server installed on a 4 node cluster with any SQL Server instance possibly failing over to any other node. All 4 nodes have SSIS installed on them. (I am assuming you have not clustered the SSIS service). You want users to be...

I was recently asked this question and so did some research and here are some of the options: 1) XMLA is the protocol designed for universal access to SSAS from heterogeneous clients - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187178.aspx 2) 3 rd party...

SQL Server 2005 includes a number of different services and it is an interesting topic of discussion on what services amongst these can be clustered and what services are multi-instance aware. Cluster aware services: Database Engine - This includes SQL...

One frequently asked question is if SQL Server is the only option to store content in a sharepoint environment. The confustion stems from the fact that SQL Server is a requirement for installing sharepoint. The answer is, there is no necessity to store...

This is a great site to bookmark for SQL Server best practices. There are best practices in several areas of the product. For some reason, the search engines do not always bring this site as the top hits: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver...

If you have used SQL 2005 encryption before, you might have hated the fact that you need to rewrite you application to access encrypted data. You had to use the encryptbykey and decryptbykey functions to write and read encrypted data. Well, the good news...

If you guys havent heard of msdewey, you should definitely check it out - www.msdewey.com Search for the word " Lord of the rings" for example. Enjoy :)

An interesting topic/discussion i came across today is connecting to SQL Server 2005 64 bit server from 64 bit clients. What options does one have? There are several good references out there. The best one i could find on this was the Data Access roadmap...

I just created this blog and hope to post some useful tidbits. I am a database technology specialist and so work with the SQL Server product. I will try to post interesting information about SQL Server and the database world in general.