Rob's SQL Blog - All Comments

SQL Server and Windows Memory

SQL Server and Windows Memory — Sat, 17 May 2008 04:21:58 GMT

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re: SQL Server and Windows Memory

GrumpyOldDBA — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:48:21 GMT

If you upgrade to w2k3 you can use 64gb of ram without datacentre - does anyone actually still use windows 2000 ?

re: SQL Server 2000 Full-Text Issues After Failover

simonsabin — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:21:15 GMT

I had to do the hunt as well :). Slightly different behaviour but the same issue.

re: Windows Server 2008 Clustering

FredAtMicrosoft — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:25:59 GMT

Cheers on the info!

----------------------------------------------

Fred Reckling

Microsoft 2008 Joint Launch Team

http://www.microsoft.com/2008jointlaunch/

re: Windows Server 2008 Clustering

JasonMassie — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:29:41 GMT

One interesting thing is the fact that quorum drive is no longer a required in some configurations. This removes one single point of failure.

re: Free SQL Server 2008 E-Learning Available

robcarrol — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:12:07 GMT

Hi, you may want to check out the SQL Server virtual labs on msdn:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/virtuallabs/aa740409.aspx

You may also find this forum useful:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=158&SiteID=1

Good luck !

re: Free SQL Server 2008 E-Learning Available

hossenheydari — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:52:19 GMT

i'm software engineer student this term i have data bases lab , but i know a little thing about SQL please help me

re: Indexing Strategies

robcarrol — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:11:29 GMT

Hi Dustin. You're spot on! It really depends on the particular application you are looking at. That's what makes it such an interesting area to work in :-)

re: Indexing Strategies

Dustin W. Jones — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 03:07:36 GMT

Great post, indexing can be a difficult and complex subject to grasp. Its more of an art than a science.

re: Update: Two-thirds of Oracle DBAs don't apply security patches

ssqa.net — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:59:29 GMT

Patches and service pack - don't miss about bug-fixes how do you go about it?

Its not sufficient when you have secured the access to the database, may be other means on the network.

re: Update: Two-thirds of Oracle DBAs don't apply security patches

Dave — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:42:57 GMT

I suppose it all comes down to your own risk assesment. I'm sure most users of SQL Server are in positions where maintentance of a system that's working fine means they don't even look at patching. With Oracle, I suppose there's no-one out there whose going to spend the time hacking it, whereas as it's a MS product, it's open season.

But your right - everyone should make sure their systems are patched, but it has to be done with consideration and thought. Too often people just say "well it was working before I patched it", "really? so what patches did you apply?", "dunno, but they were from Microsoft, so it can't be those!". The Slammer issue was the other side of this argument, but it speaks volumes that it even caused an issue in the first place. Security measures should have been in place which stopped anything from going in/out on 1433. SQL should have been set to another port, or at least completely hidden from the outside world.

I don't suppose we should complain too much however, because it was really simple and there weren't any problems - most of us wouldn't have a job ;)

Dave

re: Update: Two-thirds of Oracle DBAs don't apply security patches

robcarrol — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:18:26 GMT

Hi Dave, good point. I got into all sorts of issues regarding AWE memory after installing SQL Server 2000 SP4, so know exactly where you are coming from (unfortunately the testing on our dev systems did not show up the issue as the machines were not using AWE as they only had 4GB RAM in them)! This article focuses on Oracle, but the figures for SQL Server may be exactly the same.

I guess the point I was making is that the slammer worm could have been avoided if the systems had been patched previously with critical updates. I'm still coming across RTM systems in my organisation, which shows that some lessons still haven't been learned !

re: Update: Two-thirds of Oracle DBAs don't apply security patches

Dave — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:22:52 GMT

The reason I see for this is because Oracle is such a different animal, DBA's don't want to install patches on live servers unless they have the time to fully evaluate the impact they might have. For example we run both SQL Servers (around 25-30) and 3 Oracle Servers (running under AIX). Our oracle boxes don't need much maintentance, cache hit ratio is above 97% most of the time and generally all runs well. We had a software upgrade whcih caused us to move from 10.1 to 10.2. What we didn't see was that Oracle's query optimiser had been changed signifcantly, in regards to how it handles #joins meaning performance (for us) dropped through the floor and queries that used to take 15-20 seconds now took 2-3 days. It took months of talking to Oracle support before they picked up on the query optimiser change in the upgrade. Whilst I have no objections to keeping everything patched, we need to make sure critical systems (especially those running on Oracle) don't get too adversely affected by the update. With our SQL boxes, it's a hell of a lot easier to remove a patch (or rebuild SQL) than it is Oracle. As such, with Oracle I take a "not broke, don't fix" attitude (rightly or wrongly). Plus our servers are safely tucked away behind a couple of firewalls, and as long as our networks boys are doing their job, the servers are safe! :)

Dave