Category Archives: Database Administration

A Time and a Place for the SQL Server Maintenance Plan Wizard

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Reprinted from my editorial in Database Weekly.

In the course of my job, I get to give a lot of presentations, at various conference and user group events, many of them offering advice to DBAs on how to maintain their SQL Server databases. Aware of its limitations and failings I, like many other experienced DBAs, initially had a rather dismissive attitude towards use of the SQL Server Maintenance Plan Wizard for database maintenance. I advised my audience to avoid it and instead create their own custom maintenance scripts using T-SQL or PowerShell.

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Introduction to the SQL Server 2008 Resource Governor

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This is an excerpt from my free eBook, Brad’s Sure Guide to SQL Server 2008.

I think most of us are familiar with this situation: a SQL Server database is the backend of an OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) application, but you are required to allow users to run any reports they want on the production data, any time they want. This often results in long-running reports that negatively affect OLTP performance. Haven’t you ever wished you could limit the amount of hardware resources allocated to reporting, so that normal production activity is not affected?

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Upgrading the SSC SQL Servers: Part 2

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Since I wrote the first part of this blog series, SQLServerCentral.com (SSC) SQL Servers have been upgraded, and performance is much better than it was on the older hardware. In fact, all hardware bottlenecks have gone away. Before the move to the new hardware, CPU and disk I/O were constantly pegged, and now, both resources are more than comfortably keeping up with their load. Memory and network utilization had never been a problem with the old hardware.

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Getting the Most Out of SQL Server Profiler Using Templates

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In case you haven’t discovered this for yourself, SQL Server Profiler is one of the most powerful tools that come with SQL Server. It has the ability to gather huge amounts of data you can use to help you identify and troubleshoot many different SQL Server problems. In fact, Profiler can capture about 180 different events, and for each event, it can collect many different data columns (up to 64).

When I was a novice DBA and needed to run a new trace, I would go to New Trace within Profiler and create a new trace that I customized to collect the data I needed to identify and troubleshoot a particular problem. Once I had gathered the data I needed and fixed the problem, I would exit Profiler without saving the trace definition or the data I had collected. I didn’t see any need to save it once the immediate problem was resolved.

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Upgrading the SSC SQL Servers: Part 1

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While I have been working for Red Gate Software for nearly three years, it was only until this year that I have begun to get actively involved with their SQL Servers, specifically the SQL Servers used as the back-end to the www.SQLServerCentral.com (SSC) and www.Simple-Talk.com (ST) websites. Given that I live 8,000 miles away from the servers, I can’t really act as a hands-on production DBA, but in more of an advisory capacity. Red Gate has its own in-house IT staff that maintains the servers day-to-day.

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Free Tool for SQL Server Encryption Key Management

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Devenius Software is offering a free tool to help you manage SQL Server encryption keys. Its called the SQL Encryption Assistant (Basic Edition), and it allows you to create, modify, and drop encryptions keys and certificates. There are two versions of the software, one each for SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008.

Devenius Software is also the company behind the website Snipstorm.com. This is a brand new community website where SQL Server DBAs can share snippets of their T-SQL code with other members of the community.