The purpose of this article is to demonstrate a custom scripting framework which enables the management of SQLServer databases from a Windows PowerShell session and also to extend Powershell’s flexibility by creating a set of commands customized to our needs. I will call this framework comprised of a library of modules and functions specialized to manage SQLServer the DBA profile.
2011-06-06
3,307 reads
I work in a fairly large and unwieldy SQL Server shop. Our environment is the wild west. I have DBAs and Developers on my team that create SQL Server Agent Jobs all of the time and there is never an operator setup to email anyone based on a failure condition. I know the right solution here is to "tame the wild west" by locking down the environment and setting up a change management process, but I think that is a topic for another day. Can you give me some idea of how to identify the new recently created SQL Server Agent Jobs and Jobs without an operator setup to email us for a failure condition? I would like to receive emails when either of these conditions occur. Check out the solution to this tip to learn how.
2011-06-03
4,386 reads
SQL Server 2008 R2 Integration Services offer a number of built-in features that simplify ETL, but they come with limited functionality. Here's a solution.
2011-06-02
3,281 reads
For many people, the way that SQL Server uses memory can be a bit of an enigma. A large percentage of the memory your SQL Server instance utilizes is consumed by buffer pool (essentially, data). Without a lot of digging, it can be hard to tell which of your databases consume the most buffer pool memory, and even more so, which objects within those databases. This information can be quite useful, for example, if you are considering an application change to split your database across multiple servers, or trying to identify databases that are candidates for consolidation.
2011-06-01
4,834 reads
As a DBA, you'll encounter elusive performance, connectivity and locking problems that you'll need to troubleshoot. There are many tools that you can use such as Profiler. In addition to these tools, SQL Server 2008 offers extended events ("XEvents"), which you can use as a powerful tracing system. By default, the "system_health" extended events session is always on, and can provide you help to locate the source of trouble much faster.
2011-05-31
3,337 reads
This guide outlines the major considerations that must be taken into account when onboarding Microsoft® SQL Server® environments into a private cloud infrastructure.There is a strong trend in IT to virtualize servers whenever possible, driven by:1. Standardization2. Manageability3. IT agility and efficiency4. Consolidating servers reduces hardware, energy, and datacenter space utilization costs5. Virtualized environments allow new Disaster Recovery strategiesThe Hyper-V™ role in Windows Server® 2008 R2 provides a robust and cost-effective virtualization foundation to deliver these scenarios.However, there is significant risk in virtualizing SQL Server environments without giving careful consideration to the workloads being virtualized and the requirements of the server applications running on a Hyper-V environment.
2011-05-27
1,919 reads
This article describes a real-world example of performance tuning index maintenance for a large table of approximately 1 billion rows.
2011-05-26
5,252 reads
If you are still using the old Sybase DateTime datatype, it is a good idea to move your code to the more standard datatypes that were introduced in SQL Server 2008. Joe Celko explains why, and walks through some of the history of the TSQL way of storing and manipulating dates and times.
2011-05-25
3,801 reads
This white paper is a companion to the information about FILESTREAM found on TechNet. This paper delves deeply into selected topics that should be considered when implementing a solution that uses FILESTREAM, including design considerations, maintenance, and management of a FILESTREAM environment.
2011-05-24
3,306 reads
The PATINDEX function of SQL Server packs powerful magic, but it is easy to get it wrong. Phil Factor returns to the Workbench format to give a tutorial of examples, samples and cookbook ideas to demonstrate the ways that this underrated function can be of practical use. It is intended to be pasted into SSMS and used as a basis for experiment.
2011-05-23
5,331 reads
By Brian Kelley
Pinal Dave wrote up his methodology for what to do when you discover bad...
Aside from spinning up a SQL Server instance container, the free Azure SQL Database...
By Brian Kelley
If you haven't seen the announcement, Anthropic was able to utilize Claude (Mythos Preview)...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Why SQL Server Database Attach...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Fixing P1 Queries
Comments posted to this topic are about the item BIT_COUNT() IV
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code:
select bit_count('A')
What is returned? See possible answers