I received a request for help today from a friend (let’s call him “Dave”). Dave was looking for a better way to deploy projects across a large number of Databases spread over multiple Servers. My initial response suggested looking at scripting – either using SQLCMD or Powershell. Alternatively, there are tools such as Redgate’s “MultiScript”…
A few thoughts on SQL Server Configuration Manager. As a DBA, I use it lot. Knowing a little more about it can be handy for others too. If you want to know what SQL Instances are installed on a Server, their Startup parameters and whether they are running at the moment, you can open SQL…
I recently encountered some strange behaviour with SQLAgent Jobs in an Always On Availability Group. There’s a major difference between SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) and SQL Server Availability Groups that makes it a little bit more complicated with SQLAgent Jobs. Put simply, with a Failover Cluster, there is only one “SQL Server” involved.…
T-SQL Tuesday was started some time ago by Adam Machanic whereby lots of people blog their thoughts on a common topic. Month #105 is hosted by Wayne Sheffield with the topic of “Brick Walls”, Wayne is encouraging people to talk about when they have reached a “Brick Wall” on a project and how they worked…
It about eight years since I last used Database Snapshots. Through no real fault of their own, we haven’t been friends for a long time. As with most things, Database Snapshots are great in moderation. We had valid use-cases. Users were looking for a Static point to use for Month End reporting. On a…
Last night a DBA saved my… Budget. I saved more than my annual salary in SQL Server Licensing costs last year. That sounded like a pretty cool line to get on my resume, and it’s something that lots of us have the opportunity to work towards. SQL Server licensing is expensive, yet SQL Server can…
I seem to suffer from a recurring event. Disk space just disappears. We have monitoring in place which alerts once free disk space has passed a set threshold (generally 20% left). Service Tickets are raised, the issue is resolved and the ticket is closed. Recently, a Service Ticket was re-opened a week later with a…
The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit is provided by Microsoft as a simple way of identifying what Servers you have on your Network. This allows you to ensure that everything is licensed and paid for. So kind. MAP Toolkit also helps you to plan migrations onto Virtual Platform, helping you choose additional Microsoft product…
T-SQL Tuesday was started some time ago by Adam Machanic whereby lots of people blog their thoughts on a common topic. Month #102 is hosted by Riley Major with the topic of “Giving Back”, Riley is encouraging people to ask themselves not what they can get, but what they can give back to the SQL…
I received a call for help today. A Developer called to say that they had “killed a query, but it just won’t stop”. Actually, it wasn’t the Developer responsible, but his colleague, but that’s irrelevant. “can you take a look”? As a DBA, killing a SQL Server query is generally used a last resort.…
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