A good many companies still have servers chugging along on SQL Server 2000 (or even, as some of us noted on Twitter, SQL Server 7.0 and 6.5) . If you’re one of those companies, and you’ve never had a problem with it, why should… Read more

PASS liked our “Mouth Wide Shut” interviewing session from last year so much that they’ve decided to have us back for part two: Mouth Wide Shut: Interviews from the Other Side of the Table.

This is our brand-spanking-new session for the interviewERs…those who question, vet, and rant… Read more

I’ve finally gotten my gear together for (what I consider) the “speaking season”. Here are the SQL Saturdays that I’m speaking at, or that I’ve submitted to, or are considering submitting to! I’ll update this list as plans solidify:

• 5/18/2013 – Atlanta - Scheduled to speak.
• 8/3/2013 – Baton Rouge…

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I like to know what’s on the drives that are supposed to be dedicated to data and log files. So I run a quick check of sys.master_files:

SELECT LEFT(physical_name, 1) as Drive,
SUM(size)*8/1024 as SizeMb
FROM sys.master_files
GROUP BY LEFT(physical_name, 1)
ORDER BY Drive;

And then I compare the numbers… Read more

I’ve been getting a funky error with a new Powershell script, running as a SQL Agent job step. Let’s pretend for the moment that the script is simply “cd \\backup\SQL; dir *.bak”

The error information returned by PowerShell is: ‘Cannot find path ‘\\backup\SQL’ because it does not exist.

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Here’s a quick mystery. You have a SQL Server with several jobs that appear to be running properly and on schedule, but many of them show no history. You look around, and there doesn’t seem to be a nightly job history purge (you’re looking for something with “sp_purge_jobhistory“).… Read more

I’m studying up on CISPA for a segment on our webshow.  Even though you’ve heard CISPA and SOPA and PIPA and online privacy so many times it’s like an audible, political Rickroll….even so, you should give a great big rat’s… Read more

We lost someone this week. We lost a fellow SQL-ite, a Twitterer, a DBAs@Midnight chatroom live chatter. We lost someone smart and funny, and I’m not remotely qualified to write his tribute…I only met him once or twice.

Last week, we saw Alan enter the chatroom mid-show, and we… Read more

GUYS! GUYS! GUYS!!!  We’ve finally completed the MidnightDBA.com facelift that many of you have been begging (nagging, pining, etc.) for, for the last few years quite some time now.  The site is in early version, “just get it working right” mode. But you will notice:

• You can view MidnightDBA.com successfully…

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Good day all, and happy T-SQL Tuesday #40! Yes, this event has officially hit middle age now. I fully expect it’ll go get itself a fast car in the upcoming months.

We had a great turnout for this month. “Files and Filegroups” is an open enough topic that I got… Read more

This week, some of my Twitter followers were kind enough to chime in on a topic near and dear to my heart: the proper caretaking of SQL Server. Here is some of what we said.

Me: Common scenario: A company has databases, but… Read more

Hello and welcome to the third T-SQL Tuesday of 2013!

Over three years ago, Adam Machanic (Twitter) dreamed up the idea of T-SQL Tuesday:

Each month a blog will host the party, and about a week before the second Tuesday of the month a theme will be posted.…

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When was the last time you looked at a SQL Server new feature list and said, “Ohhh, WOW!”?  Was it around March of last year? No? Then you might have missed something really, really cool.

Let me introduce you to my friend, SQL Server 2012′s FileTable.

A Brief History…

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Unusually, Sean and I will be guests on someone else’s podcast this week! Tune in live to our PowerScripting podcast Thursday Feb 28, 2013 at 9:30PM EST here. You know, if you want to.

Onward!

-Jen McCown
http://www.MidnightDBA.com/Jen

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I have a news segment on DBAs@Midnight (our live weekly webshow, tune in tonight at 11pm Central time), but there’s no way I can get to everything that’s happened in the last few days! So, here’s your weekly news update.

Actual News

CISPA is back, as I mentioned… Read more

Update: The President’s cybersecurity Executive Order was  signed and released today (see the Wired article). “Although the order comes after a number of failed attempts by Congress last year to pass cybersecurity legislation, the White House has indicated that it doesn’t see the executive order as a substitute for… Read more

One of the really great things about being married to an MCM is that I can steal recycle his blogs, blame-free. Which is what I shall do today.

Sean wrote a great blog post in 2010 entitled “Today’s Powershell Fun“. Long and short, he shows you how to… Read more

SQL Server clusters are widely used, and widely misunderstood, which makes people like our good friend (and clustering MVP) Allan Hirt cry bitter tears. So here are a few notes for you and yours.

Cluster IS NOT Disaster Recovery

A cluster does not protect against disaster. Unless it’s a very,… Read more

Last year I stepped into the intimidating (and slightly effervescent) waters of the consulting world, and found great success. This was in some part due to many lessons I’ve learned over the years – everything from business and sales to storytelling and obsessive-compulsive record keeping.

But to a far greater… Read more

For the month of December, I’ll be taking a little holiday from blogging. In the meantime, enjoy a few of my more popular golden oldies, like this one (original post here: http://wp.me/pZM1Z-FE). And be sure to drop by our live weekly webshow, DBAs@Midnight, at 11pm Central time on… Read more