SQL Server Diaries

A few times, more than I would have wanted, I’ve been asked to support a SQL Server instance which was “discovered” to have been installed by “someone else”. This could have been anyone: a previous DBA, a Developer, an Ops person, a Vendor, or other. Any DBA working in an... [Read More]

Looking into a performance issue, such as when someone reports “blocking”, an important tool every DBA (in my opinion) should have on their toolbelt is the sp_WhoIsActive stored procedure. [Read More]

The SQL Server error log is a text file, which by default is located in the LOG folder and stores various messages. The message types vary from informational to warnings, to actual errors, all of which can help a DBA in troubleshooting or actually prevent something unwanted from happening. [Read More]

When being asked to deploy changes to a database, sometimes the TSQL files are not provided to us (DBAs) using a “user-friendly” naming convention. Countless times I have been provided with script files similar to the below: [Read More]

When I started thinking about bringing back the SQL Server Diaries blog, my starting point (and the only source to recover the old material) was an eight-year old WordPress export. Those who use Wordpress know that the data can be exported as a series of MySQL INSERT statements, as well... [Read More]