I recently ran across the following scenario. A SQL Server instance had been upgraded from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008. At the same time, the older physical hardware had been replaced by newer hardware. The DBA who had set up and configured the older server was no longer… Read more

Managing T-SQL source code has never been easy, and has often been the bane for many T-SQL developers. Later this year, this problem will go away as Red Gate Software introduces its new SQL Source Control software, which allows T-SQL code to be managed under source control, while working directly… Read more

Red Gate Software has released the 1.0 beta version of SQL Search, a new free SSMS add-in that allows you to easily search for “text strings”, allowing you to quickly find objects stored within a SQL Server instance.

For example, if you want to find all of the objects… Read more

The devLINK 2010 Technical Conference’s call for speakers is now open, and you can find information about speaking at the event here.

If you aren’t interested in speaking at devLINK 2010, you can always attend. It will be held August 5-7 in Nashville, TN.

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I have recently updated and revised my DBA Best Practices Checklist, which is hosted on www.Simple-Talk.com. The goal of the list is not to cover every aspect of SQL Server administration, but to hit the highlights. In addition, not every item in the checklist will apply to every… Read more

This past Tuesday, Microsoft officially announced that SQL Server 2008 R2 will be available in May 2010. See the announcement here.

If you haven’t downloaded the latest CTP yet, you still can here.

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I just heard that two of my presentations have been accepted for the European PASS Conference 2010 in Neuss, Germany, April 21-23, 2010. My sessions include:

How to Analyze Performance Data Using PAL

Analyzing Performance Monitor data is not always an easy task. It often involves viewing Performance Monitor logs… Read more

This is a reprint of my editorial at SQLServerCentral.com. There is a lively discussion at the SSC forum on this topic, or feel free to comment here.

While being a DBA has many benefits, it can also be a job with many stressful drawbacks. Some of them that come… Read more

Note: This is an in-depth article that exceeds 5,000 words, and provides a case-study of how a maintenance plan could be implemented on a single, plain vanilla, SQL Server instance.

As I have mentioned in previous parts of this article series (part 1, part 2), I act… Read more

Note: This is an in-depth article that exceeds 5,000 words, and provides a case-study of how a maintenance plan could be implemented on a single, plain vanilla, SQL Server instance.

As I have mentioned in previous parts of this article series (part 1, part 2), I act… Read more

I am currently in the early stages of writing an outline for a new book on indexing, targeted towards novice DBAs. While this topic has been done to death in hundreds of articles, presentations, and books, I think there is still room for a book that makes the topic easy… Read more

My new eBook, Brad’ Sure Guide to SQL Server Maintenance Plans is now available as a free, 269 page PDF eBook. The book is designed for part-time or novice DBAs who want to learn how to properly create Maintenance Plans using the tools that come with SQL Server Management Studio… Read more

Not every DBA has the time to sit down and spend a couple of hours learning about some new topic in SQL Server. But most DBAs can find 15 to 30 minutes to squeeze in a little learning, here and there. That is the concept behind www.sqllunch.com, a new… Read more

The PASS SQL Server Standard has published a new article called “Busting 6 SQL Server Failover Clustering Myths”, by Kathi Kellenberger. You can download the free article (its in the PDF format) if you are a PASS member. If you aren’t a PASS member, you can join… Read more

When you create a SQL Server Maintenance Plan using the Maintenance Plan Wizard or the Maintenance Plan Designer, the SQL Server native backup command is used to perform full, differential, and transaction log backups. But what if you want to use backup compression to reduce the size of your backups… Read more

Reprinted from my editorial in Database Weekly.

In the course of my job, I get to give a lot of presentations, at various conference and user group events, many of them offering advice to DBAs on how to maintain their SQL Server databases. Aware of its limitations and failings… Read more

This is an excerpt from my free eBook, Brad’s Sure Guide to SQL Server 2008.

I think most of us are familiar with this situation: a SQL Server database is the backend of an OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) application, but you are required to allow users to run any… Read more

Since I wrote the first part of this blog series, SQLServerCentral.com (SSC) SQL Servers have been upgraded, and performance is much better than it was on the older hardware. In fact, all hardware bottlenecks have gone away. Before the move to the new hardware, CPU and disk I/O were constantly… Read more