SQLskills holiday gift to you: all 2011 Insider videos on YouTube
As we approach the 2012 holiday season, we want to give the SQL Server community a holiday gift to say ‘thank you’ for all your
As we approach the 2012 holiday season, we want to give the SQL Server community a holiday gift to say ‘thank you’ for all your
In this survey I'd like to know where you store your SQL Server backups. If a disaster occurs, where do you get them from? It
At the SQL Connections conference earlier this month, at the start of my talk on Making SQL Server Faster, Part 1: Simple Things, I talked
As you know we're recording a lot of content for Pluralsight, and they've just published my latest course today: SQL Server: Logging, Recovery, and the
We're there as part of your team when you need us, without the hassle of contracts and scoping calls. We realize that many of you
This isn't a SQL Server related post, but I wanted to let you know about a new conference that's starting in December. It's being run
As you may know, we have a mentoring program here at SQLskills (the brainchild of Jonathan), where each of us can pick someone who's attended
That's a quote from one of my favorite comedy shows, Blackadder. With Hurricane Sandy bearing down on the North East Coast of the US today,
For the last few weeks I've been thinking about performance baselines, mostly because I've been producing Erin's new Pluralsight course on Benchmarking and Baselining. It
All kinds of little bits of information have been added to the output of various DMVs, functions, and commands in SQL Server 2012. One which
About a month ago I kicked off a survey with some code to run to figure out how many log files your databases have (see
All of our 2013 public classes are now open for registration! Based on requests from people, attendee ratings of the hotels we used this year,
Several times over the last month, I've been asked about the query that drives DBCC CHECKDB and other consistency checking commands, which has a variable
We can make SQL Server scale really well, but we can’t scale ourselves. Although our Immersion Events are extremely popular, and in high demand, we
In this survey I'd like to see what the distribution of the number of log files per database is for your servers. I'm planning to
(Check out my Pluralsight online training course: SQL Server: Performance Troubleshooting Using Wait Statistics and my comprehensive library of all wait types and latch classes.) Back in
The SQL Connections Fall show will be in Las Vegas again this year, October 28th through November 2nd. We’ve put together another great show (Kimberly
You may have noticed that my blog’s been pretty quiet in June and empty in July. May and June were frenetic travel and work months
Demand dictates that we hire another SQL guru to join our close-knit, expert team! Specifically, we’ve asked well-known SQL expert and MVP Erin Stellato to
Time flies when you're having fun! August is fast approaching and it brings the last set of scheduled SQLskills Immersion Events of 2012 – Bellevue,
Last week on the MVP distribution alias there was a discussion on undocumented DBCC commands and someone asked why so many potentially useful DBCC commands
(Check out my Pluralsight online training course: SQL Server: Logging, Recovery, and the Transaction Log.) I’ve blogged a bunch about using the undocumented fn_dblog function
Earlier this morning I noticed a discussion on the SQL MCM distribution list (that all the original MCM instructors are part of) that was trying
I first started blogging about latches and some of the deeper parts of SQL Server internals last year (see Advanced performance troubleshooting: waits, latches, spinlocks)
During every one of our Immersion Events, we designate Thursday evening as 'open mic' night where anyone can do a 15-minute presentation on anything they
Back in November last year I blogged about Jonathan's idea to mentor someone who's attended one of our classes and how Jonathan, Joe, and I
Spring takes a while to get going in the Pacific Northwest but spring is definitely in the air now that it's May – and spring means
This is part three of my three-part series of posts about what I recommend on a visit to Scotland. I’m writing posts because I get
In my previous post I explained how the sp_configure settings are stored in a special page in the master database called the CONFIG block. Sometimes
Earlier today I blogged on our SQL Server Pro magazine blog about false-alarm corruptions you will *definitely* see if you restore a backup of the
(Sitting in the back of the class while Kimberly's teaching and I'm cranking through my massive backlog of blog posts.) Inside a lave tube with
This is part two of my three-part series of posts about what I recommend on a visit to Scotland. I'm writing posts because I get
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away I kicked off a survey about memory configuration. Actually it was back at the start
I’ve blogged about problems with database snapshots a few times previously (see my Database Snapshots category) but here’s a new one that I’ve been meaning
A friend of ours on the SQL Server doc team asked me to recommend some places to visit for their upcoming trip to Scotland so
Back in 2009 I ran a survey about methods of running consistency checks. I recently re-ran the survey to get a better idea of the
Just over thirteen years ago, at the end of January 1999, I arrived in the US on an H1B visa to start working for Microsoft, after
I have a day off today at SQL Connections while Kimberly and Jonathan educate the crowds about SQL Server 2012. I thought I'd mess around
Three years ago I ran a survey about consistency checking methods. A lot has changed since then, including database sizes, 24×7 operations, and a lot
I love getting questions in email about SQL Server. I tell every class that they can send me questions and they'll get a response –
We're just back from presenting three Immersion events back-to-back in Tampa (see Brad Hoff's summary here, Tim Radney's here, and Randolph Potter's here) and while there
Earlier today there was a question on the MVP mailing list asking how SQL Server keeps track of per-column modification counts. From 2008 onwards, the
Yes, it's that time again. We're just about to have the Spring show so its time to start planning for the Fall 2012 show. Once
Yes, really. So what? Several times in the last week I've heard of people denigrating anyone who is still running SQL Server 2000 (paraphrasing): How
(This essay appeared in our latest SQLskills Insider newsletter over the weekend and generated such a lot of discussion that I thought I’d share it with all
Time for another survey – this time around memory configuration. Here is some code to run if you're on SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2
(A pair of Much-Desired Flabellinas mating.) We spent most of January in Indonesia and as part of the trip we spent 11 days on
Back in January I posted the results of the cluster key size survey I ran in 2011 and explained how the larger the cluster key
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