Halfway Through 2011

Steve Jones stops halfway through the year to look over the things that he ought to be doing to better manage systems as a DBA and reminds you to do the same.

Lesson #6: What CIOs really care about

This editorial was originally published on Dec 30, 2005. Steve is traveling to the UK this week and we are reprinting editorials.

Striping Backups in SQL Backup Pro

There are times you really do want to stripe backups across multiple files. If you have a short backup window,...

Self-aware Instances

For this Friday's poll, Steve Jones talks about a fundamental architectural decision for your software. Do you want central control or a series of distributed processes, each one self-aware, and able to act on its own.

Measurements

"If you cannot measure something, you cannot improve it." - Lord Kelvin. That quote and a blog about it inspired today's editorial.

The IF Statement in a T-SQL Query

I’ve seen quite a few posts from people asking how to do something like this:
SELECT
a.ID
, IF a.MyChar = 'A' THEN...

NUMA

Recovering a Database

So you’re restored a database, restored a few logs, all with NORECOVERY as expected and realize there are no more...

How Much Is It Worth?

This editorial was originally published on Nov 21, 2005. It is being re-run today as Steve is on holiday. How much money is it worth to compromise your ethics? Steve Jones asks today as many companies around the world seem to be doing that.

Independence Day 2011

A holiday in the US has most people away from work. Steve Jones leaves you a few thoughts and humor from his vacation.