SQL Server Pro - Recent Articles

Reserved Words

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:03:26 GMT

What is the list of reserved words for SQL?

sp_help_revlogin Alternative

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:25:40 GMT

A PowerShell alternative to sp_help_revlogin...

How much time to take a backup for 300GB?

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:58:14 GMT

How much time to take a backup for 300GB?

Warning

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:55:57 GMT

This is a warning for anyone considering using a FastHosts hosting package. DON'T DO IT. I had another website hosted with them and have just attempted to cancel the package. Despite having a button on their site that says "Don't Renew", it turns out they ignore this and will only cancel if you phone them first. As a result, I have just been charged another £64.50; and FastHosts have refused to refund it. This seems like a desperate attempt to get as much money as possible out of their customers, and is attrociously poor customer service. Now compare that with SBI, who host this site. They are by far the best website host I have used, and it is their business building tools and knowledge that have grown traffic to 12,000 visits per month (and still growing). I repeat the warning; choose FastHosts at your own risk.

DBCC CHECKDB - Use and Abuse

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:46:30 GMT

DBCC CHECKDB - How to use it and what to do when it finds corruption...

SQL Server Connection Problems

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:03:15 GMT

I am having SQL Server connection problems. I get the message An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the server. I have definitely

Virtual Log File

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:14:49 GMT

What is a virtual log file? We have just been told by a consultant that we have too many for one of our databases and we need to reduce them to get

Physical CPU Count

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:17:23 GMT

How to get the physical CPU count for a server using PowerShell and WMI...

PowerShell Backup Check

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:22:54 GMT

A PowerShell script to get overdue backups...

Data Warehouse Performance - Part 1

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:09:11 GMT

First in a series of Data Warehouse Performance articles...

SQL Server 2008 Deprecated Features

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:00:21 GMT

SQL Server 2008 Deprecated Features. How to tell if you are using them...

Beware Group Policy

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:23:34 GMT

Group Policy is a useful tool in the armoury of systems administrators, but make sure they are aware of the impact on your SQL Servers...

Malware Download - Software Review

Wed, 20 May 2009 19:05:17 GMT

A review of an effective anti malware download...

Book and Software Reviews

Tue, 19 May 2009 23:32:58 GMT

Book and Software Reviews. I've read a few good books and discovered some effective software. This is where I review the ones I've been most impressed with...

EVA Partition Alignment

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:17:08 GMT

EVA partition alignment has been discussed on a few blogs and forums recently, and I wanted to find out the truth...

Links to Forums and Blogs

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:09:59 GMT

Links to some of my favourite SQL Server forums and blogs...

SQL LIKE

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:15:23 GMT

A description of the SQL LIKE operator, with examples.

SQL WHERE Clause Optimization

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:10:25 GMT

SQL WHERE clause optimization is important to get maximum performance from a query...

Learn SQL

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:41:04 GMT

Learn SQL from a collection of free SQL tutorials covering the most useful SQL commands...

I/O Requests Taking Longer Than 15 Seconds To Complete...

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 23:32:34 GMT

SQL Server has encountered n occurrence(s) of I/O requests taking longer than 15 seconds to complete on file fname in database dbname...

SQL ORDER BY

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:39:19 GMT

The SQL ORDER BY clause explained with examples and situations where it cannot be used...

The time stamp counter of CPU on scheduler id 1 is not synchronized with other CPUs

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:57:09 GMT

The time stamp counter of CPU on scheduler id 1 is not synchronized with other CPUs. This warning started appearing in the error log in SP2...

SQL UNION

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:48:51 GMT

The SQL UNION statement allows the results from multiple SELECT statements to be combined...

SQL JOIN

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:03:18 GMT

The SQL JOIN enables rows from 2 or more tables to be combined in a single query...

OR Condition Performance

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:33:25 GMT

Efficient OR condition performance depends on indexing of all columns referenced. So how do you code an efficient query with optional parameters?...

FCB::Open failed: Could not open file

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:35:51 GMT

FCB::Open failed: Could not open file... OS error: 5(access denied). This is a basic permissions problem; here's how to solve it...

SQL GROUP BY

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:01:44 GMT

The SQL GROUP BY clause is a powerful way of summarizing and aggregating data...

SQL Subquery

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:54:26 GMT

The SQL subquery is a separate SELECT statement that is embedded in the main statement and may be executed once for each row of the result set...

xp_cmdshell Alternative

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:07:20 GMT

An xp_cmdshell alternative is useful in an environment where the use of xp_cmdshell is locked down. This article describes a simple alternative...

Error Establishing Connection to Server... What To Do

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:02:42 GMT

error establishing connection to server; When connecting to SQL Server 2005, this failure may be caused by the fact that under the default settings SQL Server does not allow remote connections. Find out how to resolve it...

SQL WHERE Clause

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:42:46 GMT

The SQL WHERE clause is used to restrict the number of rows returned by a query. This article describes some of the common ways it can be used...

Autoshrink - Don't Do It!

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:03:48 GMT

The autoshrink database option is OK in a development environment, but avoid it like the plague on your production servers...

SQL Triggers - Design for Performance

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:38:57 GMT

SQL Triggers are powerful, but be careful not to overuse them...

SQLSCMControl() returned error 5040

Thu, 29 May 2008 22:13:14 GMT

SQLSCMControl() returned error 5040, 'The cluster node already exists.' is specific to a clustered instance of SQL Server 2005 SP2 when the build is 3179 or later...

Event Log Error - Resolve Partial Assembly failed for Microsoft.VC80.CRT.mui

Tue, 27 May 2008 12:37:34 GMT

Resolve Partial Assembly failed is a fairly common error with a simple solution...

SQL Server Monitoring Script - Part 1

Sun, 25 May 2008 00:29:12 GMT

SQL Server Monitoring in a large environment can be very time consuming. You obviously have alerts set up, but what about the morning status report? Here is a simple script I use to make the job easy...

SQL Server Error Log - Keep It Clean

Thu, 22 May 2008 13:56:18 GMT

The SQL Server Error Log and Windows Event Log are essential for trouble shooting some problems...

SQL Server Audit Script - Part 2

Wed, 21 May 2008 17:25:48 GMT

SQL Server Audit in a large environment can be very time consuming. Here is a simple script I use to make the job easy...

SQL Server Audit Script - Part 1

Tue, 20 May 2008 15:35:01 GMT

SQL Server Audit in a large environment can be very time consuming. Here is a simple script I use to make the job easy...

max degree of parallelism - When to change it

Tue, 13 May 2008 17:46:16 GMT

max degree of parallelism is one of those SQL Server settings where it is often correct to change it from the default...