In my seven years as a production DBA, I can count on one hand the number of times I have need to restore the master database as a result of…
In 2013, Microsoft made it available for customers to utilize virtual machines running in Windows Azure. This allowed customers to run an on-premises version of SQL Server, but have the…
When you create a database in SQL Server and do not specify a file location for your data and log files, SQL Server will rely on the default locations as…
Microsoft SQL Server comes with a boatload of additional components. One component is the SQL Agent. The purpose of the SQL Agent is to serve as a job scheduler. Many…
At some point in your career as a data professional, you are going to fill up an entire drive with data. It is not a question of “if,” but a…
You can use the information in the SQL Server plan cache to research performance issues and investigate opportunities for performance improvement. In this three-part article series, we’ve examined several important…
The SQL Server plan cache can be a good tool to use in identifying current performance issues and in looking for new ways to improve performance. In this second part…
The SQL Server plan cache stores details on statements that are executed over time. Each time a statement executes, SQL Server will look inside the plan cache first to see…
I wrote a couple of posts previously on SQL Server consolidation. The first post tried to give insight on some of the problems and associated motivating factors that most companies have…
Consider for a moment that you have a deck attached to your house. It is one story above ground level and is growing weaker with each passing year. The former…
