At the recent TechEd North America 2011 conference, details on the next version of SQL Server called “Denali” were released.  Part of those details were an update on the SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) roadmap.  The main new feature in SSAS is a new data model, called the… Read more

One of the most important methodologies to date for troubleshooting problems with the SQL Server engine is examining the wait statistics. As with most of the DMV’s provided in SQL Server 2005/2008 sys.dm_os_wait_stats is a cumulative view. To add to my series SQLDIY: Manage and Monitor SQL Server Yourself  here… Read more

Last year we had some problems with our annual election, enough problems that clearly we needed to do a deeper look at our ‘process’ to see what was working and what wasn’t. We ended up fielding an Election Review Committee (ERC) that had it’s first meeting at the Summit last… Read more

A reader wrote to me over the weekend, seeking advice on behalf of their friend, who had been feeling deflated and lost on their SQL journey.

Hi John,

My long time friend ****** is a SQL DBA and he is feeling a bit down at the moment. He is trying… Read more

The first book I read for my 12 goal oriented books was Jerry Weissman’s Presentations in Action: 80 Memorable Presentation Lessons from the Masters.

Up front, let me say, this book met my expectations. I expected to see a lot of things I already knew. I expected to learn… Read more

Part 1 of a discussion about replacing cursors with SQL statements for significant speed improvements.

In a previous post I discussed where it is best to put logic – SQL or code. In my view, SQL is great for processing sets of data and poorly structured for row-based processing.… Read more

Wow, it’s been a crazy last couple of months with LulzSec running around doing what they do. Oh, what’s that? You’ve never heard of them? Well for many outside of IT this is probably the case. For those of us who ARE in IT… Read more

If you’re anything like me, you use many different machines on a daily or sometimes weekly basis. Some of these are on computers you use during working hours and some during your non-working hours. Well, let’s just call these non-working hours, non-billable-hours right? J As I tend to do quite… Read more

An interesting story on how a database speeds up by changing some application code. Worth the read for sure.

I caught this from Andy Warren’s blog, and it shows why we need developers to think for themselves and ask relevant questions, not just meet the spec. If someone had… Read more

After several days research, I have been trying to get a rough estimate on how many Full Time Employees are allocated per number of database users and/or servers.

Yes, I understand there are so many variables, considering that one database can be left alone for years perhaps thanks to proper… Read more

SQLdiag is a diagnostics collection utility to collect logs and data files from SQL Server that you can use to monitor your servers over time or troubleshoot specific problems with your servers.  SQLdiag can collect data from: Windows performance logs, Windows event logs, SQL Server Profiler traces, SQL Server blocking… Read more

Here’s a two part story(Part 1, Part 2 from Information Week by Larry Tieman you should read. There’s a great quote that to find the influential leaders within an organization “Look for the person with a line at their door”, something that rings true to what I’ve seen.… Read more

Few days back I was setting up data driven subscription for a SSRS 2005 report. The command / query which populates the parameters was bit complex. I normally create the script in the SSMS and once it works just used to copy paster it in the data driven subscription. This… Read more

As I mentioned in the introductory post, I’m summarizing posts from previous years in the the past week.  Some posts of interest that you may want to check out are:

• Index Those Foreign Keys (6/18/2010) – Query to help make certain that foreign keys in your databases are indexed.

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I literally changed the topic of my blog today, (as I had my blogger open), since I had read some pretty good informative articles from the current issue of SQL Server Magazine.  But, since life is the same way, unpredictable and changing all the time, I figured just go with… Read more

There will inevitably come a day when you want to take a look at the metadata of the tables inside a database. This can be accomplished one of many ways, the quickest and easiest is to expand the columns node inside the Object Explorer in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).… Read more

i use the following powershell script to retrive all sql server error logs from event viewer and export as a html file to read easily from our web server.

that is the simpel version of the script that i published on the Microsoft Script Repository Site.

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/bcdb30d6-b6ee-490f-ab8b-2e124c9159f4

$style = "<"…

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I was using user-defined tables types (UDTT) quite intensively despite of their current disadvantages especially their forced READONLY behavior when used as stored procedures parameter. Another disadvantage which I didn’t realize impact for is that UDTT cannot be altered. I hit maintenance nightmare when they became spread across… Read more

SQL Server “Denali” is the code name for the next version of SQL Server.  The CTP1 of Denali was released on Nov 8, 2010, and you can download here.  The next CTP will be available this summer.

I will have future posts that will cover the following… Read more

Can you set a unique index on a bit field? Well, you can, but you’d end up with a very short table of two (or three) rows. I defined this table:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[BitTest](
    [MyBit] [bit] NULL,
    [MyName] [varchar](50) NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]

GO…

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