SQLServerCentral.com Content tagged Strategies

Disaster In The Real World - #2

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 07:00:00 UT

Back in April Steve Jones wrote up a disaster at work. Andy had one this week and wrote up the story too. Copy cat! Pretty soon everyone will be having a disaster and writing a story about it! Give these guys credit for letting you see what happens when it ALL goes bad. Disaster recovery is hard to sell and hard to do, reading the article might give you an idea that will save you some time and/or data one day.

In The Real World - Disaster!

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 07:00:00 UT

A real world account of disaster recovery. (This article is being republished after the recent hurricane that hit the US East Coast).

Log Shipping vs. Replication

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:00:00 UT

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.

Best Practices for Database Design

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:00:00 UT

One of the few things that SQL Server does not automatically help you with is the design of your tales, views, and other database objects. Having standards and design techniques can greatly ease the maintenance of your schema as well as ease the transition to having others work with the database. New author J.D. Gonzalez brings us some of his naming techniques to keep things organized.

Tracking Database Schema Changes with DbPro

Mon, 19 May 2008 06:00:00 UT

Tracking changes to your development environments is important to ensure that your deployments to production go smoothly. Jacob Sebastion brings us a look at how well the Visual Studio Team System Edition for Database Professionals can help you with this task.

Is XML the Answer?

Fri, 02 May 2008 06:00:00 UT

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.

Keyword Searching in SQL Server

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 07:00:00 UT

Have you ever wanted to ensure that keywords in your data are easily searchable? Have you struggled with full-text search? New author Michael Ahmadi brings us an interesting idea for a keyword tracking and searching subsystem based on T-SQL and triggers.

Enterprise Architecture – Connect-the-Dots for Adults, Part 4

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 07:00:00 UT

This article, part 4 in a series, discusses how to use, publish, maintain and govern the enterprise architecture.

Step-by-Step Guide to Clustering Windows 2000 and SQL Server 2000

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:00:00 UT

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.

Putting Unit Tests to Work

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:00:00 UT

Testing is an important part of any software development process, but it's a part that many of us skimp on or ignore because of the tedious nature of testing. Longtime author Grant Fritchey has been working with Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals and has written us an article on how you can make your unit testing easier.

Application Locks (or Mutexes) in SQL Server 2005

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 07:00:00 UT

Application locks aren't a well known area of locking in SQL Server, but they can be very useful for special scenarios. They work in an analogous way to the lock() construct in .Net and are basicaly user defined mutexes in SQL Server.

SQL Stored Procedure to Log Updates, Independent of Database Structure

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 07:00:00 UT

How many DBAs need a solution to track those changes made for multiple systems? Auditing is becoming more and more prevalent in all systems and having a good solution can really make your DBA job interesting. New author Keren Ramot brings us his technique that works indepedent of the database structure.

Are key performance indicators a true measure?

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 06:00:00 UT

Some managers love to look solely at numbers when assessing performance, and key performance indicators (KPIs) are right up their street. But how useful are they in the context of software development

Partitioning - Part 2

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 06:00:00 UT

Continuing on with a look at SQL Server 205 partitioning features, Andy Warren delves into archiving techniques.

The Troubleshooting List

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 06:00:00 UT

SQL Server guru Andy Warren brings us a list of things that he considers when things go wrong. Read about some of the common sense approaches to solving performance and other problems.

SQL Server and SOX

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 06:00:00 UT

The Sarbanes-Oxley act has changed many IT jobs, usually requiring more work and documentation. Johan Bijnens brings us a list of some things his team has had to do to comply with SOX regulations.

Working Your SOX Off

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 06:00:00 UT

The Sarbanes-Oxley act has drastically changed the jobs of many DBAs with the audit and reporting requirements this act entails. Brandie Tarvin brings us some hints about how you can go about complying with the new requirements.

Stop SQL Injection Attacks Before They Stop You

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 06:00:00 UT

This article discusses: How SQL injection attacks work, Testing for vulnerabilities, Validating user input, Using .NET features to prevent attacks, and Importance of handling exceptions

Close These Loopholes - Testing Database Modifications

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:00:00 UT

In the latest in their popular series on 'Unit Testing' database development work , Alex K and Alex S give some examples of unit testing Database Modifications

What Specification Server Should I Buy?

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 06:00:00 UT

Simon Sabin is always cagey about giving advice on the sort of hardware to run SQL Server on, but admits to some general rules.

SQL Server patch pros and cons

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 06:00:00 UT

A patch to your SQL Server system can cause problems, but an unpatched SQL Server is unprotected. Learn the pros and cons of SQL Server patches.

Close those Loopholes - Testing Stored Procedures

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:00:00 UT

Alex and Alex continue their series of three articles on 'Unit Testing' database development work with some examples of unit testing stored procedures.

Agile on a Fixed Budget

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 06:00:00 UT

Scott examines strategies for dealing with constraints that business stakeholders may put on software development teams.

13 disasters for production web sites and their solutions

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 06:00:00 UT

Learn about 13 production disasters that can bring down your business

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An Auditing Solution with XML And XSL

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:00:00 UT

Auditing is something that almost every DBA needs to tackle at some point in his or her career. David McKinney brings a new twist on the solution by using XML and XSL to help implement auditing in your SQL Server application.

10 things you can do to give old servers a second life

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 06:00:00 UT

To run with the pack in terms of performance, productivity, and competition, servers that are long in the tooth have to be put out to pasture regularly. But there might be (and usually is) some life left in these early retirees, and they can still be put to good use.

How Much Scalability Do You Have or Need?

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 06:00:00 UT

How many cores (or hardware threads) can your code harness to get its answers faster?

Service-Component Architectures

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 06:00:00 UT

Service-Component Architectures (SCA) provide a programming model for implementing Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA)

Compatibility of SQL Server 2005 and 2000 coexisting

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 06:00:00 UT

When installing a SQL Server 2005 instance on your SQL 2000 machine, there are upgrade and compability issues such as linked servers, multi-server administration and log shipping.

Server Farm Reporting - Part 1

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 06:00:00 UT

Managing a large number of servers can be quite the challenge for many DBAs and it seems to get worse each year as more servers are added without an increase in staffing. New author Mark Tierney brings us the first part of a series on the framework he's built to help manage his servers.