Because installing SQL Server is so easy it is tempting to cut corners, fail to plan properly and blindly accept default options without considering the alternatives.  Read more...

Rolling out SQL Servers is a key task for DBAs, this articles provides 12 essential post-installation steps.  Read more...

A Failing cluster installation because of too many processors. Sander Stad explains how you might be able to solve this in your environment.  Read more...

This article from shows how to prepare your SQL Server 2005 clustered environment for Service Pack 3 and avoid some common problems.  Read more...

I have heard that the installation process for SQL Server 2008 differs from previous installation processes. So, how much different is the installation process? In this three-part tip series, we will review the installation process for SQL Server 2008, which differs quite a bit from SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 installations.  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...

This article highlights the steps involved to install SQL Server 2008.  Read more...

Longtime SQL Server author Raj Vasant brings us a technique for delivering databases along with an application. As more and more systems take advantage of SQL Server or Express, this is a technique that can come in very handy.  Read more...

In this article, Brian Kelley focuses on learning the various services in SQL Server. He also covers the security needed to make them work.   Read more...

Service Pack 3 for SQL Server 2000 is huge. There are significant changes in it and they apply to all three products: the core SQL Server, MSDE, and Analysis Services. Because there are so many changes, this first article in the series will only focus on the security changes.   Read more...

As a DBA you do not need to know how to setup an Active Directory domain or a DNS server, but you still need to know how Kerberos, Service Principle Names, and hostnames are used to perform integrated authentication to a SQL Server. This article by new columnist Chad Miller shows you some of the more integral parts of troubleshooting running Windows Authentication security in a SQL Server environmnet.   Read more...

When installing SQL Server, regardless of versions and editions, SQL Server database administrators tend to choose the default collation and sort-order, which is SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS. Though case insensitiveness makes the life of the database developers and database administrator's easy, there are situations where case sensitivity should be enforced just as password checking is enforced. In this article, I would like to discuss different methods for achieving case sensitivity in a case insensitive database/server.  Read more...

Mindy explores the metadata stored in SQL 2000 to show you how to produce a simple and useful data dictionary!   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...

Everyone does demos. Selling software relies upon people viewing your software in action and being confident it will work. Managing a demo server can be a challenge and this series will look at different problems and options you have.   Read more...

This article by Andy Warren offers a free utility that will generate DSN's for all or just a subset of the databases on a server in seconds.   Read more...

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...

Service Pack 3 for SQL Server 2000 is huge. There are significant changes in it and they apply to all three products: the core SQL Server, MSDE, and Analysis Services. Because there are so many changes, this first article in the series will only focus on the security changes.   Read more...

A monster book at 980 pages, it's written in 'how-to' format and has a ton of good material. Andy gave it the once over for us and reports back - see what he thinks!   Read more...

A Failing cluster installation because of too many processors. Sander Stad explains how you might be able to solve this in your environment.  Read more...

This article from shows how to prepare your SQL Server 2005 clustered environment for Service Pack 3 and avoid some common problems.  Read more...

Longtime SQL Server author Raj Vasant brings us a technique for delivering databases along with an application. As more and more systems take advantage of SQL Server or Express, this is a technique that can come in very handy.  Read more...