During presentations about doing database backups and restores, there seem to be two two types of questions that are commonly asked, Those that come from the floor during the presentation, and those that are asked in private afterwards. These are sometimes more interesting, and challenging to answer well.
2012-12-11
3,466 reads
Planning for disaster recovery and business continuity aren't amongst the most exciting IT activities. They are, however, essential and relevant to any Database Administrator who is responsible for the safety and integrity of the companies' data, since data is a key part of business continuity.
2012-12-10
2,360 reads
The Query Optimiser needs a good estimate of the number of rows likely to be returned by each physical operator in order to select the best query plan from the most likely alternatives. Sometimes these estimates can go so wildly wrong as to result in a very slow query. Joe Sack shows how it can happen with SQL Queries on a data warehouse with a star schema.
2012-12-10
1,163 reads
Occasionally, when deploying a database, you need to copy data out to file from all the tables in a database. Phil Factor shows how to do it, and illustrates its use by copying an entire database from one server to another.
2012-12-07
2,690 reads
SQL Server 2012 Integration Services offers a wide range of powerful features that allow you to streamline and automate tasks involving data extraction, transformation, and loading. However, incorporating these features into your existing business intelligence framework frequently necessitates additional security measures ensuring that data which is being processed remains protected from unauthorized access.
2012-12-06
2,106 reads
I have a requirement to add the Log Shipping Monitor for an existing installation. I have heard you can only complete this by rebuilding the Log Shipping infrastructure. Is that true? Are there any other options? In this tip I will explain how we can add the Log Shipping monitor to a SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2008 R2 or 2012 environment without rebuilding the Log Shipping installation.
2012-12-05
2,688 reads
With Report Builder and SSMS, there isn't much you can't do in the way of the common reports and visualisations. One of the more interesting visualisations uses maps, and that, combined with layers, makes for an impressive way of representing data.
2012-12-04
3,269 reads
I have to support a third party application that periodically creates a new database on the fly. This obviously causes issues with our backup mechanisms. The databases have a particular pattern for naming, so I can identify the set of databases, however, I need to make sure I'm always backing up the newest one. Read this tip to ensure you are backing up your latest database in a series.
2012-12-03
2,037 reads
My organization is looking at SQL Server 2012 and I know that the ability to create roles at the server level is a new feature. Since this is new and impacts security, how do I handle them and how do I audit them?
2012-11-30
2,255 reads
Quite often, the database developer or tester is faced with having to load data into a newly created database. What could be simpler? Quite a lot of things, it seems.
2012-11-29
2,610 reads
By John
Today is Christmas and while I do not expect anybody to actual be reading...
By Bert Wagner
Until recently, my family's 90,000+ photos have been hidden away in the depths of...
By Kamil
Managing Microsoft Fabric at scale quickly becomes painful if you rely only on the...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item UNISTR Escape
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Celebrating Tomorrow
Comments posted to this topic are about the item SQL Art: I Made a...
In SQL Server 2025, I run this command:
SELECT UNISTR('*3041*308A*304C\3068 and good night', '*') as "A Classic";
What is returned? (assume the database has an appropriate collation)
A: 
B: 
C: 
See possible answers