SQLServerCentral Best Practices Clinic: Part 3
Part 3 of the analysis of the SQLServerCentral database cluster by MVP Brad McGehee. Follow along as he talks about some SQL Server settings and gives reasons why they should or should not be changed.
Find SQL Server data and log files that are almost out of space
On many SQL Servers database file size, either data or log, may be restricted to a maximum size to ensure there is adequate space on the server. The problem with this is that if your data or log file runs out of space you will get an error message
Dropping a Row
How important is it that your server record all changes to every row? Probably very important and that is one of the foundations on which RDBMS platforms are built. Steve Jones talks about this being a difference with some NoSQL systems, and why it might not be acceptable to most businesses.
SQL Skills Immersion Event Wrapup
A look back at SQLskills Immersion training from Eric Stefani, who attended the week long class recently. SQLskills provides some amazing training, and is worth attending if want to become better skilled at being a DBA.
Using SQL Server Resource Governor to Control Resource Utilization
This article introduces SQL Server Resource Governor and provides a detailed walkthrough of using Resource Governor to manage the resource utilization of SQL Server.
Looking for Work in SQL Server
How can you find a SQL Server job? Craig Farrell brings us an article that shows how you can look for a job and get an interview whether you have very little, or years of experience.
There cometh a shower
Phil Factor speculates on the damage caused to Cloud providers by the Amazon and Sony Outages.
Tiered Storage
Storage costs are constantly rising, especially for databases as we gather more and more data. However not all of our data is necessarily the same priority or requires the same hardware. Steve Jones talks about the benefits you might get if you can tier your storage.
Find SQL Server databases where log file is too large
I support thousands of databases and I'm running across situations where I have a database that has a data file of a couple hundred megabytes and the associated log file is gigabytes in size! I understand this is because I may not have my transaction log backups scheduled properly. What I'm interested in is an easy way to identify these situations where the SQL log file is too large, so I can go in and further analyze these problem databases without needing to look at each database.
Trading in xp_cmdshell for SQLCLR (Part 2) - Export Data to Flat Files
Learn how SQLCLR can be used to replace BCP and xp_cmdshell to export data to comma separated and tab delimited flat files.
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Forums
Managing Incidents and Fighting Fires
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Backing Up a DMK
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The Quiet Part
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Question of the Day
Backing Up a DMK
In SQL Server 2025, I have a database with a Database Masker Key (DMK). I want to back up this key and keep a copy offline. When do I have to open this key before running the backup?
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