If you need to do something programmatic and you can't use SSIS, I'd suggest looking into PowerShell.

Full backups and log backups are completely decoupled. You shouldn't have to worry about that at all. What you do have to worry about is if you run differential backups....

SQL Server has a tool built into it called SQL Agent. It runs as a separate service. One of it's uses is to schedule things for SQL Server to do....

The key, the whole key, and nothing but the key, so help me Codd.

When you define a key, that's what you have to use.

Now, if the two columns that you're...

Interesting question. I did a couple of simple tests where I did a TOP, without an ORDER BY since you didn't say there was one. The estimated costs were roughly...

What should it be? A unique password for each server across the entire enterprise.

What is it usually? One 'sa' password across the entire enterprise.

What compromise I have I used? Disable...

Jack Corbett (9/11/2013)

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jasona.work (9/11/2013)

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I believe the answer to this next question is yes, but I'd like to be sure:

If I create an XE session on SQL2012 (for the...

Step into the light. Extended Events are better in...

If you have maintenance on the servers, that will show up when looking at the index usage stats.

I'm with Jack, set up extended events to track connections to the database....

The first two are pretty much the same and can probably be used interchangebly, depending on the actual complexity of the query involved. The last two are very different. COUNT...

While I was never crazy about the Mac OS, VMWare on the Mac was magnificent. It worked wonders. I loved how tightly it was coupled with the OS. I'm back...

If you did hit a situation where this might help, I'd be sure to use FREEPROCCACHE with the parameter for the specific plans you want to remove rather than blasting...

Erland Sommarskog (9/10/2013)

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You can also capture them with SQL Trace....

The plans stored in the cache do not carry run-time values with them. They only have the compile time values. This is perfectly normal behavior. The only way to get...

I don't know MySQL at all, but on a SQL Server instance it sounds like you're talking about extended properties. The ability to add additional, meta-data, about the columns or...