This week I'm going to post a bunch of info on the basic structures used to store data and track allocations in SQL Server. A bunch of this was posted back when I started blogging at TechEd 2006 but I want to consolidate/clarify info and add more about using DBCC PAGE to examine the various [...]
Paul S. Randal
In Recovery...
Inside the Storage Engine: Anatomy of a record
Posted on: September 30, 2007 4:57 pm
Search Engine Q&A #2: Moving a database while Database Mirroring is running
Posted on: September 28, 2007 3:27 pm
This was a question from the MSDN Disaster Recovery forum I started while I was at Microsoft. I have a 600 gig database that has a mirror. I need to move the databases from local drives to a SAN. Can anyone recommend a document that lists the steps to go through to move both the [...]
SQL Server 2008: Automatic Page Repair with Database Mirroring
Posted on: September 27, 2007 10:53 pm
One of the hottest features in SQL Server 2005 is database mirroring, and it's helped many companies implement successful and relatively inexpensive high-availability strategies. In SQL Server 2008, Database Mirroring has been enhanced in several ways – one of which is the ability to automatically repair corrupt pages! This feature is based on the fact that the [...]
Search Engine Q&A #1: Running out of transaction log space
Posted on: September 24, 2007 12:35 am
One of the great things about the blog engine we use is that it shows all the search engine queries that led to someone clicking through to the site. I’ve been looking through the logs to see what kind of problems people are having that end up here. In this occasional series, I’m going to [...]
CHECKDB From Every Angle: Automate your database integrity checks with SMO
Posted on: September 22, 2007 6:44 pm
Quickie this morning – I was surfing some MVP blogs this morning and came across a series of posts by Allen White around using VB Script and SMO to automate regular maintenance jobs. His latest post contains code to regularly run consistency checks and more, and report any failures. Very nice – check it out!
SQL Server 2008: On installing the latest CTP…
Posted on: September 21, 2007 1:50 am
My previous post on Backup Compression reminded me to post about installing the latest SQL Server 2008 CTP (here’s a link to the download page). I’ve installed SQL Server 2008 many times, both within Microsoft and since leaving in August, but I’ve never done it on a system that has SQL Server 2000 installed too. [...]
SQL Server 2008: Backup Compression
Posted on: September 20, 2007 6:38 pm
Over the next few months I’ll be blogging a lot about new features that are coming in SQL Server 2008 for DBAs and ITPros. First up is Backup Compression. This has been one of most heavily requested features since before I joined the SQL team back in 1999 – for me it’s really cool that [...]
Coming up soon: SQL Server Magazine Connections conference
Posted on: September 19, 2007 11:41 pm
The Fall conference season is on us again! Building on the great reaction to our co-presented Database Maintenance workshop at SQL Connections in Orlando, Kimberly and I are doing a *ton* of stuff at SQL Connections this Fall. The conference is in Las Vegas (where I’ve never been!) and runs from November 5th to [...]
CHECKDB From Every Angle: Complete description of all CHECKDB stages
Posted on: September 15, 2007 9:33 pm
On the Storage Engine blog last year I started two series that I got distracted from – one on CHECKDB and one on fragmentation. With the benefit of hindsight, I’m going to start 3 series on my new blog here – one on CHECKDB (‘CHECKDB from every angle’), one on indexes (‘Indexes from every angle’), [...]
Corruption: Last resorts that people try first…
Posted on: September 15, 2007 12:29 am
These next few posts are based off part of my Secrets of Fast Detection and Recovery from Database Corruptions session from TechEd and various user groups around the world (Edit: see here for a video recording from TechEd 2008). In this post I want to describe the two worst things I think you can do [...]
Common bad advice around disaster recovery
Posted on: September 13, 2007 8:05 pm
Now that I have a little more time on my hands I’ve been jumping back into some of the online forums. Last summer I posted on a few bits of bad advice I’ve seen in the forums but yesterday I was stunned by some of the terrible advice I saw being given out. So, I’d [...]
How to tell if the IO subsystem is causing corruptions?
Posted on: September 12, 2007 11:09 pm
One of the comments I received recently is below: Hi Paul, If the corruption happens to be related to I/O Erros and there is nothing in the Event log or anywhere that points to I/O related issues, is there any Trace flag that we can enable when performing checkdb or checktable operations that can show [...]
Example 2000/2005 corrupt databases and some more info on backup, restore, page checksums and IO errors
Posted on: September 4, 2007 8:31 pm
This was originally posted as two posts on the SQL Server Storage Engine site. It was very popular so I’ve combined the two posts together and added a bunch more commentary – especially on page checksums and IO errors. You may also notice some color differences between the scripts from earlier in the year and today’s post [...]
It’s official!
Posted on: September 1, 2007 2:33 am
Well, now I’m no longer a ‘Softie’. It feels a little strange after having been on the SQL team for 8.5 years but I’m really jazzed about all the stuff we’ll be doing over the next year and more here at SQLskills. We’re taking a small vacation before diving in – first thing I’ll be doing [...]
