Out Looking for Trouble I talked yesterday about going back and revisiting systems that are up, running and don’t have known issues. I asked about your experiences – and one of the responses was from Clayton – thought I’d pass it along. "As part of creating Data Warehouse solutions for clients, I typically perform a data quality check. This includes: […]

Legacy App Review Cycles Do you go back and review the schemas, design and maintenance for legacy applications, or are you more of an "if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it" type of DBA? So many of us support legacy applications – systems that were perhaps even built on prior releases of SQL Server, using the tools and features that […]

Troubleshooting Performance with Your SQL Server Non-intrusive ZERO Impact SQL capture allows every production server SQL statement with it’s performance to be captured 24×7. Requires no intrusive server profiles or traces that degrade the server performance by 25% to 60% (SQL Server Magazine, August 2008). Since 80% of database server performance problems are due to SQL, knowing the current and […]

Part of Database Recovery… … is the time it takes to actually do the recovery. Make sure you can recover specific items as you need to, and make sure it can be done accurately and in as little time as possible. If you’re not sure how to attack this and get your systems finely tuned to have things like recovering […]

Featured Article(s) SQL Server 2005 Transact-SQL Optimization Tips (Part 2) Here are some helpful SQL Server 2005 Transact-SQL tips. Building Reports Can Be A Time Black Hole… …but doesn’t have to be. Have you ever beat your head against the wall trying to get yet another report built for users – or, if you’re using a report, trying to get […]

"Enterprise Software" Seems that the definition is pretty varied from those that have had a chance to write in about what, exactly, is "Enterprise" software. Specifically, I was curious what this target was that keeps coming up when describing SQL Server – getting it "Enterprise-Ready." Ben: "Thanks, for the thought-provoking questions. Here are my three cents on this one. Being […]

Featured Article(s) XML Data Islands – What are they? [In this fourth tutorial of the series, we shall learn how to create these Islands of code and insert them into a HTML file. We shall also learn how to dynamically update the contents of controls within a HTML page.] What, Exactly, Makes "Enterprise" Software? The next version of SQL Server […]

Featured Article(s) RANK(), ROW_NUMBER(), and PARTITION to Solve Business Needs This article presents a business case and solution showing how Common Table Expressions, RANK(), ROW_NUMBER(), and PARTITION can be used to get specific sets of data, in a clear concise manner. The article provides an overview of the functions, and the procedures needed Experiences Keeping Up With Releases Kathy wrote […]

Great Webcasts on DMVs and SharePoint Don’t miss Quest’s instructive webcasts on SQL Server and SharePoint management, hosted by expert Brent Ozar. In “DMVs – What are They and Why Should I Care,” you will find out how to interpret the various performance metrics shown through the Dynamic Management View (DMV) and resolve issues faster. And in “The Converging Paths […]

Featured Article(s) SQL Server 2005 Transact-SQL Optimization Tips (Part 1) Here are some helpful SQL Server 2005 Transact-SQL tips. Using LINQ to… <insert platform/technology> Yet? I know a lot of people have been talking about the LINQ technologies and approaches to working with SQL Server. The object-oriented approach, the more integrated view of the database from the context of application […]