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10 February 2010 12:09

Print vs Select - security through obscurity ?

Now here's an interesting snippet which I'm sure will provoke a few " ... and you didn't know that! " comments. I wanted to take the output from a stored procedure into a table using the insert into mytable exec proc; command but...
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17 August 2009 18:59

Windows 2008 build fun and games.

I run a number of test servers at home, these are technically PCs running a server o/s, these currently number 6. I generally build these myself with a base spec of supporting 8GB ram in 4 slots, a minimum of a dual core proc and at least one x16 pci...
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19 March 2009 20:39

How to determine that hardware DEP is available and configured on your computer

Well here we are again with another post I’d been saving up until I resolved the images issue. DEP and how it affects memory on your SQL Server!!! Microsoft KB: 912923    MICROSOFT KB: 875352 ===========================================...
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04 March 2009 22:35

NTFS Fragmentation may be more harmful than you think

I’ve posted previously about the adverse affect of ntfs fragmentation and I’ve also mentioned that it is sometimes suggested that fragmentation is not a concern on a SAN. I’ve yet to finish testing this on a SAN, after all you don’t often get a free play...
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14 January 2009 20:09

Tracking contention on the SAN - testing Times

One hotly disputed topic on SAN performance is the matter of contention. This may materialise in the fabric due to over subscription or excessive fan in. A fibre channel fabric is a network which connects servers and storage through switches, just like...
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23 November 2008 22:31

Testing Times 3

( I was on holiday for three weeks so sorry for the delays ) In my previous posts I briefly mentioned the task in establishing a method to benchmark a SQL Server new build or migration. This hasn't been an easy task by any means and I am under pressure...
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07 October 2008 15:41

Testing Times 1

It's an interesting time with being asked to performance test/benchmark a new server setup for a migration of sql server and data centre. Both current and new servers are SAN attached and it has been what is effectively the testing of the storage...
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26 August 2008 11:57

When is a number not a number?

Bob Dorr has posted about conversion issues with isnumeric http://blogs.msdn.com/psssql/archive/2008/08/25/isnumeric-returns-1-true-and-i-expected-0-false.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage This reminds me of a difficult "bug" in an application...
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19 July 2008 12:08

Cannot generate SSPI context

Now here's a slightly interesting point about this error. Although the kb does actually mention this reason for the error it is about the last thing on the article, a footnote, and it doesn't specifically word it to cover this scenario, and we...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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