The Columbus GA SQL Users Group will be hosting their first ever SQL Saturday on September 8th 2012 at Columbus State University.  We currently have 5 classrooms reserved and have the ability to add a couple more if needed.  Each room holds over 40 people so our current capacity is… Read more

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Last time I went through my script to gather server information for my inventory. Today I’m going to go through my script to collect SQL Server instance data. So, I think I made it clear last time that I’m not a Powershell guru, and there are probably countless ways in… Read more

Without Instant File Initialization turned on, each time a data file on SQL Server 2005 and above is created or has to grow in size, the file or portion of the file added must be zeroed out.  Depending on the size of the file this can be a very time… Read more

With the new Project Deployment Model in SSIS developers are gaining the benefit of a new design time only feature called Project Connection Managers.  If you’ve developed in SSIS previously Connection Managers require no further detailing, but for those new this is how SSIS connections to data that’s used as… Read more

Denali – Day 31: Discontinue and Breaking/Behavior change features Discontinue Features: As discussed about Deprecated will going to discontinue with that in Denali there are some features which has already discontinued. Means if you try to use those features they … Continue reading →

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This whole concept of the clustered index as a foundational structure within SQL Server is just plain nuts. Sure, I get the concept that if a table has a clustered index, then that index actually becomes the table. When you create a clustered index on a table, the data is… Read more

I mentioned in a post over at my Goal Keeping DBA blog that I was not planning to attend the PASS Summit this year because of family time. Yesterday, my wife and I let the cat out of the bag: we're due to have a girl in mid-October. Usually, my family goes… Read more

By David Postlethwaite

I was at a meeting the other week when someone mentioned that you could specify two SQL Servers in a .NET connection string. I hadn’t heard of this before and did some investigation and found out a bit more.
 
In your SQL connection string you can… Read more

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How to synchronize the data from the Production environment to Development, Testing and Staging Environments for SQL Server? (Republished)


One of the most common DBA task is to synchronize data to Development, Testing, and Staging environments. Normally this is a simple task of backup and restore or using a data…

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I was disappointed to see the mention in the Connector today that there would be no SQLRally  2013 in the US. Reading the minutes from the May 2012 Board meeting (and you should read it to do your own interpretation) it feels like the decision was made largely on two… Read more

In SQL Server 2005 we got the TRY…CATCH construct which was a big help for developers to effectively handle errors within their T-SQL code. Prior to that the developers had to use the @@ERROR in-built system function to check for errors and they had to check for error conditions after…

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I have a desktop computer, a laptop, and a iPhone.  I frequently add meetings to my Outlook calender on my desktop computer, but sometimes enter them on my laptop.  And I frequently use my iPhone to alert me about upcoming meetings.  These leads to a major problem in keeping all… Read more

I’ve done quite a bit of speaking over the last few years, which has required a lot of travel. I had 15 events that I attended last year, only one of which was in Denver, so I spent quite a few days on a plane.

This year I’ve cut back… Read more

Without Instant File Initialization turned on, each time a data file on SQL Server 2005 and above is created or has to grow in size, the file or portion of the file added must be zeroed out.  Depending on the size of the file this can be a very time… Read more

Denali – Day 30: Deprecated Features Deprecated feature means these features are available in the current version of Sql server but it’s highly possible that would not be available in future version of sql server, so you should plan your … Continue reading →

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I’m very lucky in my work as freelance consultant and trainer I get to travel the world, and last week I was delivering Learning Tree course 2105 SQL Server 2012: DBA Skills Upgrade in Ottawa Canada. I’m not only a Learning Tree instructor for this course but I’m also the… Read more

Are you using SSD or SAN / NAS based storage solution and sporadically observe SQL Server experiencing high IO wait times or from time to time your DAS / HDD becomes very slow according to SQL Server statistics? Read on… I need your help to up vote my connect item… Read more

I’ve had a few friends using standing desks for sometime. I first heard about Greg Gonzalez (sqlSentry | Blog | @SQLSensei), fellow runner and one of the smartest SQL people using a treadmill desk. I saw it in his office at SQLSentry a few years ago, and was… Read more