Regular Columnist: Brian Knight

Brian Knight, MCSE, MCDBA, is on the Board of Directors for the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) and runs the local SQL Server users group in Jacksonville. Brian is a contributing columnist for SQL Magazine and also maintains a weekly column for the database website SQLServerCentral.com. He is the author of Admin911: SQL Server (Osborne/McGraw-Hill Publishing) and co-author of Professional SQL Server DTS (Wrox Press). Brian is a Senior SQL Server Database Consultant at Alltel in Jacksonville and spends most of his time deep in DTS and SQL Server.

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A Review of sqlSentry 2.5

In this review, Brian reviews one of his favorite tools in his DBA toolkit. He shows you some of the new features in this event management system and how it can shave hours off your day each day.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2006/01/12 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: Product Reviews

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 6,139 reads

Upgrading SQL Server 2000 DTS Packages to SSIS

If you're like Brian Knight, you probably have dozens if not hundreds of DTS packages running around that you're terrified to touch. SQL Server 2005 has some interesting methods to upgrade your packages to SSIS with minimal effort. This article shows you a few ways that you can use to upgrade and some of the drawbacks.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2008/05/23 (first posted: 2005/12/27) | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: SQL Server 2005 - SSIS

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 43,231 reads

Day 2 of TechEd

Day 2 from TechEd, this time from Brian Knight's perspective as the SQLServerCentral.com crew enjoys a week of learning and sun at the 2005 conference.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2005/06/08 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: SQLServerCentral.com

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 5,034 reads

Agile Development with Scrum

We've all been there: the project that never ends and no light at the end of the tunnel. Nothing is more disheartening to a developer, DBA or anyone else that may be on a project than a finish line that has no end in sight or worse yet, one that keeps moving. Agile and Scrum development methodologies aim to fix this problem and others by applying what will appear to be common sense after you engage in the methodology for a few projects. This article will get you acquainted with my now-favorite d   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2005/05/18 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: Miscellaneous

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 16,431 reads

Comparison of SQL Server 2005 Editions

On February 24th, 2005, Microsoft announced the new editions and pricing of SQL Server 2005. There have been quite a few changes and MVP Brian Knight has put down a comparison as well as details about which features are included with each. Read about the 4 new additions and see which one might be right for your next project.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2006/09/01 (first posted: 2005/02/28) | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: News

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 54,696 reads

First Impressions of SQL Server 2005: Installation and Tools

Brian Knight has started a new series base on his impressions of SQL Server 2005, Beta 2, aka "Yukon". Read about his first impressions of the product as he starts down the path of learning about the next version of SQL Server.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2004/08/09 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: Administration

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 16,362 reads

Tutorial: Changing the Visibility Objects in Reporting Services

In the last tutorial in this series of Reporting Services tutorials we added conditional formatting to the report. Now that we have created our first report and have added a bit of flare to it, we will go ahead and make it even cleaner. In this very quick demonstration, we will go ahead and change the visibility of rows or columns based on given conditions.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2004/07/20 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: Development

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 13,879 reads

Tutorial: Adding Conditional Formatting into Reporting Services

Last time, we discussed how to create your first report in Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services. The report we created was a status report on SQL Server Agent jobs. The report we created was from the template and was very crude looking because of that. In this short article, we are going to look at improving that report and answer a common newsgroup question I see. This week, we are going to set the rows of the report to alternate colors.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2005/09/16 (first posted: 2004/07/06) | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: Development

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 50,935 reads

Tutorial: Designing Your First Report in SQL Server Reporting Services

Trying to get past the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services learning curve? Well never fret, this article is a first in a series of tutorials to walk you through creating a practical report for your company to monitor your SQL Server databases. In this sample report, we are going to create a job monitoring system. Specifically, we are going to connect to our SQL Server and report if the jobs succeeded or failed the last time they ran.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2005/08/05 (first posted: 2004/06/28) | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: Development

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 56,269 reads

Don't Get Left Behind

Production DBAs may be a dying breed. At least according to some sources. While we're not sure that we agree with that, there is definitely a trend that should have you working on your career. The day of the DBA that only manages the operational data store is waning. Today's DBAs need to be flexible and have a number of other skills. Brian Knight looks at a few of the skills that you might to add to your arsenal to be prepared for the future of SQL Server.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2004/05/21 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: State of the Business

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 10,688 reads

SQL Server Needs Incremental Updates

Although Brian likes that Microsoft delayed the next release of SQL Server for quality, he disagrees with the release strategy. See his opinion and argue your own!   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2004/04/29 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: News

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 8,838 reads

SQL Server 2005 Feature Survey Results

A week ago, we solicited readers to let Microsoft know which of the SQL Server 2005 announced features mattered most to them. We had a great response, with 890 of you answering the survey in three days. The answers were pretty interesting. The full results can be seen at the bottom of this article.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2004/03/22 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: News

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 10,955 reads

Yukon Delayed Again and Named

Microsoft confirmed today that it has delayed Yukon yet again. It also announced that Yukon has an official name and will have another beta added to the development cycle. Get all the info here and share with Microsoft your thoughts about what features are important to you.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2004/03/11 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: News

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 17,743 reads

Review: AppDetective Helps You Be a Nosy DBA

So how many servers do you have in your environment? In this review of AppDetective by Brian Knight, he shows you how AppDetective helped him find SQL Servers he didn't even know about in his environment.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2003/07/11 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: Security

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 4,439 reads

Is Windows 2003 Really Faster?

Is Windows 2003 really faster for a SQL Server/IIS environment? Let us do all the leg work for you! We are about to upgrade the SQLServerCentral.com web and SQL Server from Windows 2000 to Windows 2003. As part of the case study, we are going to capture a baseline of the server's overall performance before the upgrade and then again after the upgrade. We will then document the experience and benchmark numbers.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2003/06/10 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: Installation

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 12,700 reads

The SQL Server Black Box

Have you ever had the problem where a user ran a query against your SQL Serer and crashed it or made the server unusable since the CPU was spiked at 100%? A SQL Server black box is the equivalent of a flight data record. The black box records all queries being passed to your SQL Server and other useful information like errors.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2003/04/11 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: Administering

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 12,881 reads

Gathering Random Data

Brian Knight recently had the basic need to retrieve a record from the database at random. What seemed to be an easy task quickly became a complex one. This case showed an interesting quirk with T-SQL that was resolved in an equally quirky way. This quick article shows you a method to retrieve random data or randomize the display of data.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2003/03/26 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: Basic Querying

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 8,560 reads

Who's to Blame for the SQL Slammer Virus?

Last week the SQL Sapphire (or SQL Slammer) virus hit corporate networks throughout the Internet. Although damage has not been estimated yet, it is sure to be in the tens of millions of dollars. So who is to blame when a virus like this manhandles a corporate environment?   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2003/02/03 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: Administering

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 5,692 reads

Another SQL Server Virus Hits the Internet

On Friday the 24th, a virus that preys on a SQL Server vulnerability began to attack networks, taking down many networks. This brief network describes the virus and how to protect yourself from it.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2003/01/27 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: Service Packs

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 10,657 reads

A Sneak Peek at Entegra

Recently, the SQLServerCentral.com labs had the chance to get a sneak peak at Lumigents latest creation, Entegra, which is scheduled to ship in the second week in December. Entegra monitors database activity and provides a complete record of access to the data and changes to database structure and permissions.   Read more...

By Brian Knight 2002/11/13 | Source: SQLServerCentral.com | Category: Product Reviews

Rating: |  Discuss |  Briefcase | 3,244 reads

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