High Energy Plankton

In 2022 humans will finally have become their own worst enemies/frenemies.  No matter how hard Gore works to convince us that the greenhouse effect is killing us, we won’t believe it until 2022.  It is at that time we will finally turn to alternative energy sources.  These… Read more

Last month I blogged about my absence from the blogosphere.  If you want, you can read about it again – here.  Granted, it has been a month and I still have been slacking.  I am hoping to turn a new leaf and post more regularly here in the next… Read more

Do your database users appear to be having an out of body experience?  Have they lost all ties to their login?

Does it feel like maybe what this baby rhino might be experiencing – just trying to find their place in your database?

Well, have we got a little snippet… Read more

Wow, I can’t believe it is already September of 2012.  Labor day has come and gone, school is in session and the SQL Community is still busy.  With that, I am trying to be a bit busier within the community.

September is already bringing us some good things.  Just this… Read more

Well well well.  It has certainly been a long time between announcements on the blog about meetings for the Las Vegas SQL Server Users Group.

We have had to cancel a couple of times in the past few months – but the meetings have been happening with or without the… Read more

You may or may not have noticed that over the past several months I have been somewhat absent from my blog.  Very few articles if any have been produced.  There has been a very good reason for that.

It all started back in November of 2011.  Slowly over time, the… Read more

When administering a larger database environment, sometimes one needs to perform repetitive tasks.  Performing repetitive tasks becomes more and more painful (maybe even demoralizing) with the larger the number of databases that might exist on a server.

This kind of administration will have you running in circles.  You may even… Read more

When was the last time you had to find something within your database?  Did it feel more like a child’s game or an arduous task?

What would you say if it could be more like child’s play (like the baby elephant is portraying) than a chore?

Child’s Play

The simplest… Read more

We all inherit things from time to time through our profession.  Sometimes we inherit some good things, sometimes we inherit some things that are not so good.  Other times we inherit some things that are just plan annoying.  Yet other times, we inherit things that may be annoying and we… Read more

What do we do?

Have you ever run into a database that is in the “In Recovery” state?

If that has happened, have the bosses and/or endusers come to you asking “What do we do?” or “When will it be done?”.  They probably have – it is inevitable.

The question… Read more

Wow – have I ever been dark and silent this past couple of months.  Nothing like the present to reverse that trend.  I do have a good excuse for why I haven’t posted many blogs for the past month or so.  That is a good reason to get my queue… Read more

On more than one occasion, I have run into a case where a large database with a large transaction log was being mirrored.  Then a hiccup comes along – the transaction log on the primary server grows to a point where the transaction log on the secondary server fills the… Read more

LAUNCH

If you have been hiding under a rock, you have probably not heard that SQL 2012 has launched.  With it, some really cool features are now available to use in our SQL database environments.

Some of these cool new features include some new DMVs, the AlwaysOn feature, and columnstore… Read more

On occasion you may ask yourself if there are any under used indexes in your database.  If not you, then possibly a manager or client.  Usually this comes up when evaluating for missing indexes or better indexes.

SQL Server provides a means to find the information we seek.  We can… Read more

In October of 2011, I shared an example of a peculiar set of sort requirements.  Today, I am going to share another similar set of requirements.  Based on prior experience, when I saw this request on a sort order, I was sure I could find a simpler solution.  Today,… Read more

This is a short script to help the DBA with documentation purposes.  This would come in handy especially in those cases where you are consulting or you have taken on a new job.

Suppose you want/need to find out what SQL Agent jobs are running SSIS packages.  This script will… Read more

I am bringing an oldie back with another twist.  I recently ran into the need to correlate information between a couple of different queries that I like to use.  The two scripts returned different pieces of data about tables in a database.  This information was table size and missing foreign… Read more

Another month and another opportunity to write about an interesting topic.  This month hosting TSQL Tuesday is Argenis Fernandez (Blog | Twitter).

This month, Argenis has invited us to talk about demons from our past.  Ok, not necessarily demons but at least share why you might be a… Read more

If I were to show you the tabs in the following pic without a description, would you recognize the websites to which they belong?

I would dare say that you would likely recognize them.  Not due to the labels on the tabs, but quite possibly due to the icon on… Read more

Today I get to share something that has been on my someday list for quite some time.  I have planned on getting a solution that involves TSQL to help determine if you are running SQL Server on a physical machine or if it happens to be a virtual machine.  Now,… Read more