Excellent organizational skills are one of the cornerstones to being a successful Database Administrator. Sometimes the tools that Microsoft provides us with do not give us complete control over the organization of our environment. Such is the case with
A new feature introduced in SQL Server 2008 is Table-Valued Parameters. In this tip we will look at some examples.
Thus far in this tips series on Access and SQL Server we have created an ODBC Data Source Name (DSN) using the OLEDB driver, created a System DSN for the new SNAC (SQL Native Client) driver and created linked tables in Access by using the SNAC DSN. At th
I've read many articles about defragmenting indexes and how it's a good practice. However, I've noticed that my physical database files are terribly fragmented too. What can cause this? Can I benefit from defragmenting them?
Thus far in this tips series on Access and SQL Server, we have created an ODBC Data Source Name (DSN) using the OLEDB driver for connecting to SQL Server 2000, as well as a System DSN to connect to a SQL Server 2005 instance using the new SNAC (SQL Native
I have heard about the SQL Server Health and History tool, but I have never used it. How long has this tool been around for? In your opinion is this a tool worth using? What sorts of functionality does the tool have to offer? What types of limitations
Gaining insight into my SQL Server standard and Windows logins has historically been a challenge in terms of determining password changes, failed login attempts, etc. I have noticed that you have experienced the same issue with your tip entitled 'When wa
I think that just about all aspects of the SQL Server Management Studio can be exposed by using T-SQL instead of having to use the GUI. I have been trying to write some routines to determine whether a database is online as well as to check some other inf
In this article we look at how to query and read the SQL Server log files using TSQL to quickly find specific information and return the data as a query result.
Very often when performance problems arise there are a few tools that I always first look at using to help troubleshoot SQL Server issues. One of these tools is Performance Monitor. This tool is usually run interactively and only for a short duration whi
As we are looking through the new features in SQL Server 2008 we found a potentially interesting one called Change Data Capture. Can you give us a detailed explanation of how we go about using this new feature?
Learn how long a SQL KILL statement will take to rollback using the WITH STATUSONLY option to get rollback status.
This tip covers SSD storage and SQL Server fragmentation and things you should know.
In this tip we look at how we can connect to SQL Server using the SQL native client.
This is the first of four tips focusing on connecting Microsoft Access to a SQL database.
My company is just starting to look at adding functionality to retain historical data for key tables and columns for auditing purposes in many of our SQL Server databases. I have seen some of your recent tips related to triggers (Forcing Trigger Firing O
I have a database table that has a lot of data already in the table and I need to add a new column to this table to include a new sequential number. In addition to adding the column I also need to populate the existing records with an incremental counter
All that SQL Server POWER! All that SQL Server FUNCTIONALITY! There is not enough time in the day to keep it all straight! There is no shame in making use of any short cuts or cheats that allow you to be a more productive and well-versed SQL Profession
Learn about the issues with using no_log or truncate_only for a SQL Server log backup and what should be done instead.
With the recent release of SQL Server 2008, getting up to speed on the technology is necessary from a number of different perspectives. From your view of the world what are the drivers from a business, technology and career perspective? Have you heard i
It has come to my attention that some of our MSDB databases are getting what I would consider large for a system database. Some of our MSDB databases are over 2 GB which is a little perplexing because I know we do not create any user defined objects in t
Learn how to use T-SQL code to dynamically create windows folders to store database files or backup files to keep things organized.
Learn how partitioning SQL Server data has query performance benefits.
The SQL Server error log is a great place to find information about what is occurring on your database server. One helpful thing that each log offers is that it shows you all of the failures and/or errors that have occurred since the last start of SQL Se