As a start, run a report on historical page life expectancy.

Look into implementing TDE (transparent database encryption). It will automagicly keep your data pages encrypted, so database files and backups are not readable should they fall into enemy hands. Once...

An operating system is to a database server what a buyer/seller agent, attorney, and county clerk are to a real-estate purchase. It's entirely reasonable to ask what the middle men...

But, backups were (sort of) easy, teach the customer to make sure everyone had closed out of the application and set them up with a DOS batch file to...

Back in early 90's, I too worked with a dBase clone called FoxPro.
OMG! If we opened the .dbf file in the FoxPro IDE to run and ad-hoc query,...

It is also possible to have perfectly good backups, but then loose the keys. For example, iIf TDE is enabled on a database, then backups are encrypted by default, so...

When participating in an interview, I'll often ask the candidate open ended questions similar to this. It's a lot more telling than a simple question about "What is a clustered...

The data management view [sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats] aggregates statistics like total reads / writes, last read / write datetime, etc. However, the counters do get reset whenever the server is restarted. The...

A substantial profiler trace, logging a lot of data for which you're unsure what to do with; that may cause more problems than it helps. It can consume CPU or...

Perhaps the operating system debate is just a needless distraction. Expanding on the existing SQLOS subsystem, the SQL Server database engine could theoretically run on bare metal and do all...

Of course you should avoid rebuilding indexes. However, if for whatever reason you do need to periodically rebuild indexes on TB sized tables, then definately parition the indexes and REBUILD...