(Paul S. Randal) Question: We use a lot of distributed transactions and we are now investigating database mirroring to provide high availability to one of our critical databases. During our testing, we discovered that distributed transactions sometimes fail after we try to failover the mirror databa

(Tibor Karaszi) One of the first things I want to do when I look at a new SQL Server is to get an idea of space usage details for each database, as well as total.

(Pinalkumar Dave) The job of an SQL Consultant is very interesting as always. The month before, I was busy doing query optimization and performance tuning projects for our clients, and this month, I am busy delivering my performance in Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008 Query Optimization and & Performa

(Ray Barley) I have a requirement to implement a custom security scheme where roles and the user’s place in the organization hierarchy are used to determine which customers a user can access. In particular the requirements are that a sales person can only access their customers and any other role c

(Denny Cherry) Master Data Services, also known as MDS, is one of the key business intelligence features being introduced with SQL Server 2008 R2. The basic goal of Master Data Services is to provide a single authoritative source for information within your enterprise. This information can then be u

(Tibor Karaszi) This is really basic, but so often overlooked and misunderstood. Basically, we have a database, and something goes south. Can we restore all the way up to that point? I.e., even if the last backup (db or log) is earlier than the disaster?

(Anu Chawla) Besides the databases that TEMENOS T24 is using in SQL Server, SQL Server itself has several system databases. The tempdb system database is available to all users who are connected to the instance of SQL Server. SQL Server treats tempdb differently from the other databases on the serve

(Pinalkumar Dave) Few days ago, I wrote about SQL SERVER – Out of the Box – Activity and Performance Reports from SSSMS (Link). A user asked me a question regarding if we can use similar reports to get the detail about Indexes.

(Buck Woody) This is the last article in a series of a formal process you can follow to migrate data stored in “departmental data stores” (such as Excel, text files, XML documents and so on) into a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) like SQL Server. The first article in this series is her

(Simon Sabin) I recently got an email from a fellow MVP about single user mode. It made me think about some features I had just been looking at and so I started playing.