One of the more popular counters used by DBAs to monitor SQL Server performance, the Buffer Cache Hit Ratio, is useless as a predictor of imminent performance problems. Worse, it can be misleading. Jonathan Kehayias demonstrates this convincingly with some simple tests.
2012-02-06
2,967 reads
A benefit of using computed columns is that they can save developers from having to write calculation logic at the application layer; at the table level, the application can simply reference the computed column. In addition, performance can be improved by persisting a computed column and building an index on it.
2012-02-03
2,708 reads
To kick off a series of DBA worst case scenarios, we asked Phil Factor to confess. He came up with a classic: The mistaken belief that a backup WITH CHECKSUM guaranteed a good backup that could be restored, and the ensuing disaster.
2012-02-02
5,280 reads
In a recent MSSQLTips.com question, a user asked how they could get an alert whenever a login failed due to the account being locked out. As with many problems, there are several ways to solve this issue.
2012-02-01
1,962 reads
Row Sampling Transformation and Percentage Sampling Transformation provide data sampling functionality. This functionality is useful in a number of Analysis Services and Data Mining-based scenarios.
2012-01-31
1,836 reads
The most common T-SQL command in use has to be the SELECT statement, it is the bedrock of any SQL Professional's day. Sometimes it's used to snatch some data from a table or two while some quick investigation is done, other times it is at the heart of a stored procedure or view that will inform business decisions for coming months or even years.
2012-01-30
4,672 reads
In this tip, we will see how to build a report which shows the cumulative sales amount for the current month, current quarter (QTD) and current year (YTD) in a single crosstab (tablix) report, which makes it easy to compare the data.
2012-01-27
2,781 reads
Every so often, the question comes up on forums of how to pass a list as a parameter to a SQL procedure or function. Phil Factor provides some examples using XML, and tests them against other popular methods.
2012-01-26
4,027 reads
I recently encountered a situation where the drive hosting Sharepoint Databases in a Staging environment ran out of space. I logged onto the server and found that the msdb database has itself occupied 38 GB of the total disk space. Msdb database generally contain maintenance information for the database such as backups, log shipping and so on.
2012-01-25
2,711 reads
There are lots of things to think about when you design a physical database. What data types should I use? What column is appropriate for the primary key? Are there particular indexes that I should use to improve performance? How should I implement data integrity rules? This list goes on and on. In this article Greg Larsen will be exploring different physical database design elements.
2012-01-24
3,644 reads
By Vinay Thakur
I wrote about TempDB Internals and understand that Tempdb plays very important role on...
By Vinay Thakur
continuing from Day 1 where we covered the history of AI and GPT family,...
By Steve Jones
It’s a day off for Redgate today. This is our annual wellbeing day, where...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item A Quick Restore
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Guarding Against SQL Injection at...
I have a quick question on Ola Hallengren Index Optimize Maintenance . Do we...
While doing some testing of an application, I wanted to reset my environment after doing some testing with this code:
USE DNRTest BACKUP DATABASE DNRTest TO DISK = 'dnrtest.bak' GO /* Bunch of stuff tested here */RESTORE DATABASE DNRTest FROM DISK = 'dnrtest.bak' WITH REPLACEWhat happens if this runs, assuming the "bunch of stuff" isn't anything affecting the instance. See possible answers