Here's an evergreen question. It's a question that never completely goes away. But lately, I've been getting it a few times per week. So I thought it's time to readdress the question, which usually takes some form of the following: I can't really do effective development on my little dev laptop because our production SQL Server database is 15 gazillionbytes, way too big for my workstation. What's a uber-nerd to do? Well, maybe they didn't use the word "uber-nerd". But you get my drift, right? The production database is really, really big - unmanageably big for keeping a local copy. … [Read more...]
Dev Advice: Make a Tiny Dev Database Act Like a HUGE Prod Database
Filed Under: Challenges, Cool Technologies, Databases, On-Line Resources, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks, Tool Time, Transact-SQL Programming Tagged With: Best Practices, DBA, Developer, Performance, Transact-SQL Programming
Accelerate OLTP with HP and Microsoft’s New High Performance Reference Architecture
If you haven't started to read Shashank Pawar (blog), you're missing out. Shashank is part of Microsoft Australia and has been writing some very good content lately. Here's an example from the Reference Architecture for High Performance SQL Server: HP and Microsoft engineering teams have worked together to create a reference architecture to Accelerate Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) database workloads with a fully-flash based HP/Microsoft architecture and achieve significant performance increases, simplified database manageability, and industry leading TCO. The details come in a … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Architecture, Challenges, Cool Technologies, Databases, Hardware, IO, Performance, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication Tagged With: DBA, Oracle, Performance
New on SQLMag Tool Time Blog – Update to FineBuild
Recall back in January 2011 that I profiled the cool tool, FineBuild for SQL Server, which helps you configure and quickly deploy installations of SQL Server. Not only does FineBuild help you install a new SQL Server using the settings and configuration options you desire, it goes a few steps further by ensuring that any additional programs, tools, and utilities are also installed. Ed Vassie, the creator of FineBuild, has revised and improved the tools since I last wrote about it. Ed has naturally added a number of bug fixes and documentation improvements. Several new features... [READ … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks, Tool Time Tagged With: CodePlex, DBA, SQLMag, Tools, Tools & Scripts
Must-Have Resources – SQL Server Backup & Recovery
One of the things that drives me crazy as I'm getting older is that my brain is losing the capacity to differentiate version numbers. As I speak travel around speaking with customers and at conferences, I find my self saying things like "I can't recall if this problem was fixed in SQL Server 2000 or 2005. But you don't have to worry about that any more." Or things like "That feature was added in SQL Server 2008 R2, eh, or was that version 6.5. DOH!" followed by a loud slapping sound as I whap my palm into my forehead. The Internet doesn't forget either. Recommendations that were once … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, On-Line Resources, Presentations, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks, Video Tagged With: Backup & Recovery, DBA, Quest Software, SQL Server 2008 R2, Video
Everybody Needs a Test Harness
When you're developing new Transact-SQL code or modifying some existing code, do you just launch directly into programming? I know that I did just that, for years. It wasn't until I was trying to performance tune some existing code that I realized I hadn't actually taken caching of data and execution plans into account. So all those modified stored procedures that I was so proud of might not actually be faster than the first generation of procedures because I hadn't checked to ensure that I was testing cached programs against uncached programs (and, by extension, the data used by those … [Read more...]
Simplifying CSV Data Loads
Data files containing comma separated values, or CSV, are some of the most common data formats used for data representation and storage outside the database. When it comes to loading CSV data into the database, many options exist, however, few make it as simple as CSVexpress, powered by expressor software. I recently visited www.csvexpress.com to check out just how simple it could get. In short, CSVexpress offers a repeatable and quick way to load any CSV file into SQL Server (or any other database). For those whose data quality is not as pristine as it should be, CSVexpress also offers … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Cool Technologies, Databases, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Data Cleansing, Data Quality, DBA, ETL, Master Data Management, SQL Server 2008
Troubleshooting Repeated Login Failures on SQL Server
I’d recently experienced a situation where I was getting repeated login failures to a SQL Server where I knew that I had the correct user name and password. Each time, I’d get error 18456 in response. "Login failed for user '<user_name>'. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 18456)". The challenge when troubleshooting this error message is that you may have a problem with SQL Server or you may have a problem with Active Directory or Kerberos, if you’re using one of those authentication technologies. A False Trail When times are good, and you’re able to make a connection, you … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Administration, Challenges, Databases, On-Line Resources, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: MVP, SQL Server 2008 R2, Troubleshooting
PASS Summit 2011, Day 1
I've already had a few good days in Seattle/Redmond this week, meeting with the Microsoft SQL Server program teams and with other Microsoft SQL Server MVPs. I was as excited as a squeeling Justin Beiber fangirl waiting for his new video, wishing I could tell you all of the cool things I learned at Redmond about the future of SQL Server. But as you'd expect, all of that cool stuff is presently NDA. I'm sure there'll be some cool announcements from Microsoft this week. So be on the lookout for the good word from Microsoft. Keynote Rushabh Mehta, the PASS president, spent a few moments … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Cloud, Conferences, Databases, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: BigData, cloud computing, DBA, Hadoop, Quest Software, SQLPASS
Women in Technology: A Quick Observation and a Quick Straw Poll
A bit of background: Those aren't grand daughters of the Clampetts in the picture at right. Those are my three daughters and three stepdaughters, all of whom I want to inherit the world - as little or as much as they want to take hold of. (I already talked a bit about this in a post on my personal, family blog. Be warned, it's all boring family photos and such). Enabling them to have all of the choices and opportunities that are open to my son is a big motivating factor in my life. So many years ago, when several PASS volunteers wanted to start doing more to build a community of support … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Challenges, Conferences, Ethics, Opinion, PASS, Professional Development, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post, Trends Tagged With: WIT
Upcoming SQLSaturday Events in Omaha and Atlanta!
I've had enough time off from traveling after my surgery to finally travel again. First on the circuit , set for August 27th, is Omaha, Nebraska and SQL Saturday #91. As a former Crimson Tide alum, I was stoked about going to the University of Nebraska, our once and future rivals on the Grid Iron. But after a moment's confusion, I remembered that the Huskers are over in Lincoln, not Omaha. (May Bear have mercy on my soul.) Almost all of the speakers are friends. Many are Microsoft MVPs. So it'll be great to catch up with these fine folks and, I hope, get a chance to meet many … [Read more...]
Filed Under: Conferences, Databases, PASS, Presentations, SQL Server, SQLMag, SQLServerPedia Syndication, TCD blog post Tagged With: Quest Software, SQLPASS
