SQL Server high availability. Log shipping or replication, clustering or some other solution. It's a challenge and as companies grow more dependent on their databases, it's one that more and more DBAs face everyday. Paul Ibison has taken a look at how log shipping and replication can be compared in the quest for high availability.   Read more...

In this next article of the SQL Server in the Enterprise Series, we'll explore how to cluster Windows 2000 and SQL Server 2000 in a step-by-step manner. After this article, you should be able to cluster a SQL Server 2000 machine for failover availability in an Active/Active cluster.   Read more...

SQL Server 2005 builds some great encryption tools into the product, but what if you are stuck with SQL Server 2000? SQL Server expert Michael Coles brings us the first part of a series along with a free toolkit to manage encryption and keys.   Read more...

In this article, Brian looks at how Citrix MetaFrame can use SQL Server for its internal data repository. The basic operation of SQL Server in a Citrix MetaFrame installation is covered. In addition, Brian looks at how a DBA is an integral part of the support team for a successful Citrix MetaFrame farm.   Read more...

The .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 make it easy to create a basic but extensible database-monitoring solution without a lot of complexity or coding.   Read more...

Arthur Fuller advises DBAs to try to break their software in order to make sure their SQL Server databases can withstand potential attacks. See if your code can hold up to his suggested tests.  Read more...

Learn how to use ALERTs, a SQL Agent job and a stored procedure (SP) to create a copy of your critical database backups on another physical machine as soon as the database backups are created.  Read more...

SQL Server high availability. Log shipping or replication, clustering or some other solution. It's a challenge and as companies grow more dependent on their databases, it's one that more and more DBAs face everyday. Paul Ibison has taken a look at how log shipping and replication can be compared in the quest for high availability.   Read more...

Ensuring that your disk subsystem performs well and does not run out of space is a balancing act that many DBAs learn over time through trial and "out of space" errors. New author Arindam Banerjee takes a look at some of the things to consider when capacity planning.   Read more...

SQL Server 2005 builds some great encryption tools into the product, but what if you are stuck with SQL Server 2000? SQL Server expert Michael Coles brings us the first part of a series along with a free toolkit to manage encryption and keys.   Read more...

This article by Chris Kempster covers a wide variety of areas concerned with data migration. Primarily, it focuses on process, standards and some of the many issues to consider when undertaking this role.   Read more...

Auditing, analyzing and documenting your SQL Server installation is becoming more important all the time, especially as more and more attention is being paid to the security of your environment. Chad Miller brings us a look at a framework and a sample document you can use in your environment to conduct an audit.   Read more...

How many times have you run out of space in a database? What about on a file system? Andy Warren has had this happen a few times, especially when large imports take place. He brings us an article that describes some of the precautions he has taken to prevent this from happening.   Read more...

Securing your SQL Server can be an arduous task, but very rewarding. This article covers 10 steps to properly protecting your data.   Read more...

In this next article of the SQL Server in the Enterprise Series, we'll explore how to cluster Windows 2000 and SQL Server 2000 in a step-by-step manner. After this article, you should be able to cluster a SQL Server 2000 machine for failover availability in an Active/Active cluster.   Read more...

Clustering a SQL Server machine was one of the most frustrating tasks a DBA and Windows administrator had to accomplish in SQL Server 7.0 and Windows NT 4.0. With the maturity of both the OS and the DBMS in Windows 2000 and SQL Server 2000, this operation has been simplified tremendously. This first article in the series of article on clustering SQL Server will explain the general architecture of clustering.   Read more...

Hurricane Charlie had a pretty substantial impact on residents and businesses in Central Florida. Andy lives in the Orlando area and wrote up some notes on the various challenges he ran into it. Out of it you might find a couple things worth thinking about adding into your DR plan.   Read more...

SQL Server Alerts provide a great way for the server to notify a DBA that some event has occurred, usually something bad that they need to fix. However alerts can also be used to drive business logic processes and enable some types of actions to be safely performed without requiring extraordinary rights by a user. Author Leo Peysakhovich brings us some ideas on how we can use alerts to implement business logic processing.   Read more...

Automating SQL Server tasks is the sign of an experienced DBA. One who doesn't waste time on repetitive tasks that can be easily setup in a job, task, or some other scheduling process to run when they need to run. Haidong Ji has written a number of articles on how to perform automation and brings us yet another technique. This time he looks at managing your backup files, something that we all need to do, but all too often forget to do.   Read more...

When transferring a database to a new server, you are bound to experience a user problem. In this article by Neil Boyle, he shows you how to transfer passwords and accounts seamlessly to a new server.   Read more...

SQL Server 2005 builds some great encryption tools into the product, but what if you are stuck with SQL Server 2000? SQL Server expert Michael Coles brings us the first part of a series along with a free toolkit to manage encryption and keys.   Read more...

Ensuring that your disk subsystem performs well and does not run out of space is a balancing act that many DBAs learn over time through trial and "out of space" errors. New author Arindam Banerjee takes a look at some of the things to consider when capacity planning.   Read more...

Learn how to use ALERTs, a SQL Agent job and a stored procedure (SP) to create a copy of your critical database backups on another physical machine as soon as the database backups are created.  Read more...