Browse by Tags

All Tags » Diagnostics (RSS)
23 June 2008 09:19

Performance Dashboard for SQL 2008

Just in case you haven't seen this http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/thepremiers/archive/2008/06/20/sql-server-2008-performance-studio.aspx then have a read. As I actually create dashboards and performance reporting for sql 2000 and sql 2008, and have...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | with no comments
Filed under: , ,
10 June 2008 20:30

Tracking problem indexes in SQL 2000

It’s all so easy(ish) to work within SQL 2005 but the reality is that there are still more SQL 2000 databases than SQL 2005, so I’m told, and I’m supporting one of them right now. I’ve been contemplating on how to get a handle on which of my indexes are...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | with no comments
Filed under: , ,
09 June 2008 18:54

Dates - especially when SQL Server can't be British!

Just like memory config dates never seem to go away and I've had some discussions with our BI team recently on why things were not working quite as expected, especially on the 13th of the month; and I noticed the same issue had arisen for a member...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | with no comments
Filed under: , ,
03 April 2008 12:53

Disk Partition Alignment ( SANs and Diskpart )

As a further post to my series on what else can affect SQL Server Performance here’s the thorny issue of disk partition alignment. Disclaimer : I don’t get to configure SANs, places I work have dedicated teams and it’s unlikely a DBA would be considered...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | 2 comment(s)
Filed under: , , ,
26 March 2008 08:02

Configuring x64 SQL Server

I often read a number of forum posts concerning performance / configuration issues with x64 SQL Server. I've also found some interesting views on how much memory you can allocate to SQL Server on a x64 install ( I don't have any experience of...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | with no comments
Filed under: , , ,
19 March 2008 19:17

Bug in UK SSUG 2008

It was discovered earlier today that SSUG 2008 was unable to distinguish a Thursday when it fell before a bank holiday friday and as a consequence SSUG would be unable to function on March 20th. It's not thought that other Thursdays that fall before a...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | 2 comment(s)
Filed under: ,
12 March 2008 19:57

Things that may not be right on your SQL server.

Ø When performance is under the spotlight most often the finger is pointed at SQL Server, here’s a short list of things that may impact your server performance. Disclaimer : This is my personal hit list and in no particular order. Out of date drivers...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | 2 comment(s)
Filed under: , ,
29 February 2008 19:57

Only once every four years thank goodness!

I never cease to be amazed by what I discover within IT, mostly these days I'm more disappointed than anything else, I'm not a lover of the let's bash Microsoft about security patches or we should all use Linux / Open source as in the latter I'm sure...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | 1 comment(s)
Filed under: , ,
22 February 2008 20:34

dbcc dropcleanbuffers - or maybe not

As a consequence of another action I was prompted to want to clear the buffer cache – or to be more precise I tried to clear the buffer cache. So stepping back, what happens if you install more memory than the combined size of your databases? Most would...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | with no comments
Filed under: , , ,
13 February 2008 12:25

viewing object locks in SQL 2000

It's old stuff but I just thought I might post this code just in case someone else finds it useful:- I was looking at a process which was blocking its self, as this was a data extract ( only reads ) allegedly there shouldn't have been blocking, the simplest...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | 1 comment(s)
Filed under:
12 February 2008 21:20

Custom Reports for the DBA without SSRS

Creating Custom Reports for the DBA ( You can find this and other information at http://www.grumpyolddba.co.uk/ ) 1. You don’t need SQL Server Reporting Services to do this 2. You don’t need IIS installed 3. You do need SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | 1 comment(s)
Filed under: ,
30 January 2008 19:18

Things I learned today

I'm involved with some tuning as usually tends to be the case and amongst the work I've been doing a couple of interesting points arose. Firstly we upgraded the memory in the production cluster, what was unusual for me was that we added more memory than...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | 1 comment(s)
Filed under: , , ,
24 January 2008 18:58

Perfmon Counters thresholds

Just in case you missed the link to The Premier's blog http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/thepremiers/archive/2008/01/23/monitoring-sql-server-using-performance-monitor.aspx they've just posted details of a perfmon trace viewer. But what is more important...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | with no comments
Filed under: , ,
26 October 2007 10:09

Do you use the float datatype?

I thought I’d perhaps blog about this although I don’t truly think this is of any real significance unless you like to use the flat datatype, which I hope you don’t. I had restored a production backup onto a development box and the guys had run a couple...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | 11 comment(s)
Filed under: ,
24 September 2007 13:53

An update on the TokenAndPermUserStore “problem”

http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/grumpyolddba/archive/2007/07/19/more-tokenandpermuserstore.aspx As the original incident had been raised on the back of an application service pack upgrade I made use of one of my msdn incidents. I have patch 3179 applied...
Posted by GrumpyOldDBA | with no comments
Filed under: ,
More Posts Next page »