Driving The Database Engine

Troubleshooting Reporting Services at the Client Tier with Fiddler

Tom Mills — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:29:00 GMT

The best tool I’ve found yet is a utility named Fiddler. It is a useful tool that's used by web developers to trace IP traffic on the client. Fiddler is a web debugging proxy that logs and displays valuable information about what's going on between the browser and server. Fiddler is downloaded and installed on the client machine. When it is executed, it creates a local proxy that intercepts web traffic and displays metrics about response times, size and type of data and has viewers to display the actual data. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP and HTTPS traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler includes a powerful event-based scripting subsystem, and can be extended using any .NET language....(read more)

The Connected Show: Paul Thurrott on Windows Server 2008 R2

Tom Mills — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:03:00 GMT

In this episode, guest Paul Thurrott joins Dmitry and Peter to discuss Windows Server 2008 R2 and Virtualization. Also Peter and Dmitry discuss the news about Codeplex.org, an open source software foundation created by Microsoft. The Connected Show Episode...(read more)

This blog now available in 15 languages using Windows Live Translator

Tom Mills — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:02:00 GMT

If you can read one of the fifteen languages supported by the Windows Live Translator, you can now view this blog in one of those languages. Simply click on the dropdown at the top of this web page to select the language. A new browser window will open...(read more)

Windows 7 RTM is available, time to upgrade!

Tom Mills — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:04:00 GMT

As many of you know, Windows 7 RTM is now available to MSDN and Technet subscribers. I've had the bits for Ultimate for a little over two weeks now. I would like to share my personal upgrade experience with you. First to get the new bits was my work laptop....(read more)

References for SQL Server Consolidation

Tom Mills — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:40:00 GMT

These are links to material relevant to consolidating and upgrading SQL Server. SQL Server Consolidation on the 64-Bit Platform - Lessons Learned Pre-deployment IO Best Practices Six Failover Clustering Benefits Realized from Migrating to SQL Server 2008...(read more)

Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server Whitepaper

Tom Mills — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:46:00 GMT

Jimmy May and Denny Lee (along with a huge supporting cast) have published an excellent white paper on disk alignment best practices. This is a must-read document for DBAs, storage engineers and architects. Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for...(read more)

BlogMS - Official Microsoft Team Blogs

Tom Mills — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:45:00 GMT

All the official Microsoft Team Blogs are now listed on BlogMS. These are blogs maintained by the product teams and contain tons of good information about what's going on with our products. Here's the link to BlogMS . In case you're wondering why my blog...(read more)

The Existence of Anti-SPIDs?

Tom Mills — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:20:00 GMT

An astute member of the SQL Server community has observed the presence of SPIDs with a negative number. These anti-SPIDS were noted in SQL Server 2000 and appear to be generated by MSDTC. I'm wondering if they behave like anti-matter and cancel out positively...(read more)

Consolidating Your Database Infrastructure Presentation from SQLSaturday Atlanta

Tom Mills — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:45:00 GMT

Thanks to those of you who attended SQLSaturday and a special thanks to all the volunteers from the Atlanta.MDF user group who put on a great event! Here is the presentation I did for the SQLSaturday event in Atlanta. Please feel free to download and...(read more)

Using the SQL Server Performance Dashboard Reports on 2008

Tom Mills — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:52:00 GMT

One of my colleagues, Rob Carrol, has uncovered a way to use the Performance Dashboard Reports on SQL Server 2008. Here's a link to his blog post on the topic: http://blogs.technet.com/rob/archive/2009/02/18/performance-dashboard-reports-for-sql-server-2008.asp...(read more)

I've never met a Microsoft employee who...

Tom Mills — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:27:00 GMT

As a consultant working in the field, I am part of a relatively small group of people who are customer-facing (with an emphasis on facing). I am one of the front-line employees who's job it is to assist our customers with implementing our products and...(read more)

This is how we roll with SQL consolidation...

Tom Mills — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:14:00 GMT

Mark Pohto, one of our Microsoft IT senior system engineer's, just published an excellent technical white paper SQL Server Consolidation at Microsoft on Technet. This paper describes how Microsoft approached the issue of consolidating thousands of SQL...(read more)

SQL Saturdays

Tom Mills — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:18:00 GMT

SQL Saturdays are events organized by local SQL user groups (mostly) that consist of a one day training event for SQL Server professionals. I've volunteered to speak at the SQL Saturday event in Atlanta. It's being hosted by the good people at Atlanta.MDF....(read more)

New security patch MS09-004 for SQL Server is out...

Tom Mills — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:52:00 GMT

A new security patch for SQL Server has been announced. You should pay close attention to this one since it may not be immediately obvious that you have a server that requires this patch. The system I'm working on currently has SQL Server 2005 with Service...(read more)

Creating a job to re-index all user databases in a Standard Edition instance of SQL Server 2005/2008

Tom Mills — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:40:00 GMT

Here's another version of the reindex script that supports SQL Server 2005/2008 Standard and Workgroup Editions. It's got the online re-indexing code stripped out. If you're running something else like Workgroup, just change the code that checks for "Standard"....(read more)