I like practice tests. Once I feel like I’m getting ready to take a certification exam I start taking an appropriate practice exam or two.

Just a point here. When I get a question wrong I review the SUBJECT I get wrong, I don’t just memorize that particular answer. I… Read more

I was wondering the other day how VLF (Virtual Log File) sizes effected shrinking the log file so I decided to do a bit of experimentation.

Note: If you aren’t familiar with VLFs you might read David Levy’s A Busy/Accidental DBA’s Guide to Managing VLFs.

First we create a… Read more

I recently read an awesome post on http://www.stackexchange.com questioning how to change columns to rows ie UNPIVOT. One answer demonstrated 4 different ways to unpivot a table including your basic UNPIVOT statement, CROSS APPLY, CROSS APPLY with VALUES and a dynamic SQL version for when you have a large number… Read more

Last week I posted my stored procedure for database permissions, sp_DBPermissions. A couple of days later I was demonstrating it to one of my co-workers and his response was “Where’s the server version?” Unable to come up with an appropriate rude response I’m posting the server version this week,… Read more

Last week I posted a series of database permissions scripts. I’ve been using them quite a bit over the last week and decided they were too unwieldy the way they were. I had to copy over each script, put in each parameter and then run it. Not all that much… Read more

“My transaction log is too big!” I wish I had a dime for each time phrase has been spoke, written, tweeted, etc. I’ve read about it in various forums, blog posts etc. Discussed it with co-workers and other DBAs I know. I know it’s not, but sometimes it feels like… Read more

At first glance these two functions seem very similar, and superficially they are. For example COALESCE(fieldname1, fieldname2) and ISNULL(fieldname1, fieldname2) return seemingly identical results. The big obvious difference is that ISNULL can only have two parameters while COALESCE can have n parameters.

So what are some of the more subtle… Read more

Over the last year of blogging my thoughts and queries I’ve discovered something interesting. I posted Where is my Backup? and found myself referring back to it over and over again. And that’s just one example. Turns out that for queries I tend to use frequently posting them here is… Read more