Many of us have SQL Servers at work that we learn on, test with work, etc. But getting your own SQL Server for a website can be a tricky thing. Especially on a budget. Or maybe your company wants to have their website hosted. Before you spend any hard earned money, read part 2 of this two part series by Jon Reade on what to look for when setting up a SQL Server hosting company.   Read more...

Many of us have SQL Servers at work that we learn on, test with work, etc. But getting your own SQL Server for a website can be a tricky thing. Especially on a budget. Or maybe your company wants to have their website hosted. Before you spend any hard earned money, read this two part series by Jon Reade on what to look for when setting up a SQL Server hosting company.   Read more...

How many times have you had to estimate space for a new SQL Server database? How much time did you spend on it? Was it a thumb-in-the-wind guess or did you actually examine a schema and calculate some values. If you have asked someone to estimate the space their database will need, they probably guess more than compute, but now Andre Vigneau gives us an easy way we can teach those developers to put some thought into the process.   Read more...

SQL Server is the best RDBMS, at least according to the current thinking at SQLServerCentral.com, and is fully capable of meeting all of your database needs. However that does not mean you should ignore other platforms. A good DBA will be aware of and perhaps skilled in other platforms and tools, including competing database systems. There has been a lot of buzz about the open source MySQL RDBMS this past year and David Poole takes a look at this server, giving you some points of comparison with   Read more...

We take a look at each of the major components of a SQL Server's hardware, and examine what can be done to help maximize the performance of your hardware.  Read more...

Andy starts a new series about Worst Practices - come find out why and read about the first one on his list - using Hungarian Notation for column names!   Read more...

Data Sanitization is the process of making sensitive information in non-production databases safe for wider visibility. This White Paper is an overview of various techniques which can be used to sanitize sensitive production data in test and development databases.   Read more...

The Windows Mobile platform, which includes Microsoft .NET Compact Framework and Microsoft SQL Server CE, encapsulates the complex tasks of communication management and data exchange while your device is in a disconnected state. (16 printed pages)  Read more...

Andy has some examples of not very high tech solutions that involve some technology behind the scenes, but the binding factor was that someone had to see the problem first. Not about SQL, but we think it is on topic.   Read more...

A service oriented architecture seeks to decouple some of the tight connections normally built between systems and components. Here's a great overview on how messaging between systems can be setup from MSDN.  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...

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...

As Chris points out, in most applications these days you end up having to go with optimistic locking, which presents a few challenges. Chris works through the list of options. If you're building web/disconnected apps and need anything besides last update wins, this one is for you.   Read more...

This short article looks at some mistakes developers should avoid when they also have the task of designing the database, database objects, or TSQL used to access it.   Read more...

One of our favorite authors is back with a great how-to on log shipping. This isn't the baked in log shipping, this is a code your own solution that gives you a starting point for your situation. Even if you don't need it now, it's worth looking at to gain a better understanding of how shipping works.   Read more...

New Author! Don Peterson writes his first article for us and explores why he considers XML to be...bad! There are some interesting points made here and if you've haven't thought about what XML means to you as a DBA, it's a subject worth spending some time on.   Read more...

Andy has been busy lately on a project you'll be hearing more about soon (!), but he did manage to get part four of his managing jobs series done. This article discusses ideas for patterns to follow when building jobs, including writing to the console, setting errorlevels, and how to get them installed on the server. DBA's, if you're not developers, look at this article - this is stuff you can take to your development team and get better/more manageable jobs.   Read more...

David tries his hand at Project Management and what follows is a list of tips and problems from that experience. As David points out, it's interesting to see things from the other (not developer or DBA) point of view.   Read more...

This article on the JoelonSoftware site discusses project management and customer expectations. It has a great discussion of why non-technical users place so much value on what they can see (the GUI) while developers place so much value in what can't be seen (yeah, the code!). It's actually more interesting than that, take a look!  Read more...

Dinesh does a good write up on research he did investigating the BI market and doing a feature comparison between Oracle 9i and SQL 2000. Simple bullet point format, worth a look.   Read more...