Blogs

February 2009 - Posts

• Exam Resources for 70-432

  Buck Woody put together a list of resources for the exam 70-432 TS: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance .  This is a good list of resources for those looking to take the exam and I do recommend that people do take the exam.  Read More... Posted Thursday, February 26, 2009 12:16 PM by Jason | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL 2008, Certification, SQLServerSyndication

• Monitoring Index Contention With DMFs

  Often when I am load testing an application with a client I want to check to see if there is any index contention in a database.  To do this, I use the DMF sys.dm_db_index_operational_stats .  For a good rundown on this DMF, I recommend reading Read More... Posted Wednesday, February 25, 2009 9:24 AM by Jason | 0 Comments Filed under: DM Views, SQL 2005, SQL 2008, Performance Tuning, SQLServerSyndication

• Never Tell Them The Odds… (OT)

  I’ve been waiting a long time for the movie Fanboys to hit theaters and it has finally come.  The first time I saw a preview for this movie was more than three years ago.  Throughout all of the delays, I’ve been waiting patiently to see it. Read More... Posted Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:00 PM by Jason | 0 Comments Filed under: Off Topic

• SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 CTP

  The SQL Server team released SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 CTP last night.  Not too long now and the argument to “wait until the first Service Pack 1 to upgrade” will be dead.  I will enjoy when those discussions are over. If you’d like to Read More... Posted Tuesday, February 24, 2009 11:28 AM by Jason | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL 2008, SQLServerSyndication

• Reasons to Attend SSWUG's Ultimate vConference

  I’m speaking at the upcoming SSWUG Ultimate vConference and thought I’d share some reasons to attend the upcoming conference that I got in an e-mail today… "6 Reasons to Attend SSWUG's Ultimate vConference This Spring"   (Second round early-bird Read More... Posted Tuesday, February 24, 2009 10:51 AM by Jason | 1 Comments Filed under: Conference

• Big Tempdb Table

  This won’t be the most exciting post.  But hey, it’s Monday!  What’s exciting about that?  Maybe someone will bring in donuts.  Or maybe I should since I am still on my couch and not headed to the office yet. Anyways, every now and Read More... Posted Monday, February 23, 2009 7:53 AM by Jason | 0 Comments Filed under: Performance Tuning, SQLServerSyndication

• My First Computer and Favorite Old Games (OT)

  Continuing this thread, I was tagged by Rob Boek to post about my first computer and and favorite games. The first computer that I had access to was a Commodore 64 that my dad purchased when I was probably about 10 years old.  That thing was awesome!  Read More... Posted Friday, February 20, 2009 9:25 AM by Jason | 0 Comments Filed under: Off Topic

• Learning SharePoint Day 1

  It’s become necessary for me to dig into SharePoint a bit.  I’m a huge newbie here so I figure I’ll share all of the links for things I look up in these SharePointy travels.  I expect some of these posts will be very trivial but “hey, I’m learning.” Read More... Posted Thursday, February 19, 2009 3:47 PM by Jason | 0 Comments Filed under: Sharepoint

• Certification Skills Week

  Microsoft is hosting a week long certification event coming up from March 9-13.  There will be some deep discounts (40%!) on certification exams and discounts on training.  You can also win a Zune and other prizes at these events – who doesn’t Read More... Posted Thursday, February 19, 2009 12:50 PM by Jason | 0 Comments Filed under: Certification

• Rounding Up to the Nearest 1,000

  A co-worker came over and asked how to round up to the nearest 1,000.  He tried to use ROUND but found that it always split between going up or going down depending on the value and the report he was working on always had to round up. Almost before Read More... Posted Tuesday, February 17, 2009 12:31 PM by Jason | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL 2005, SQL 2008, SQL 2000, SQLServerSyndication, SQL Tips

• Things you Know Now…

  Last week I was tagged by Jason Massie to write up a few things I wish I knew as a Junior DBA.  The tagging was started by Mike Walsh a couple weeks back and has been making the rounds. Without much ado, here are some things that I’ve learned through Read More... Posted Monday, February 16, 2009 6:04 PM by Jason | 2 Comments Filed under: SQLServerSyndication

• Troubleshooting Permission Issues with CREDITIALS

  I keep hearing this story and similar variations… ”On a dark and stormy night, I developed a SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) package.  It worked wonderfully on my desktop development environment.  All the files were properly accessed Read More... Posted Friday, February 13, 2009 5:55 PM by Jason | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL 2005, SQL 2008, SQLServerSyndication, Whitepaper

• Database File Information

  I often go out to clients and have to do some quick analysis of the client’s SQL Servers.  Below is one of the SQL scripts that I’ll use when I want some to give some quick feedback on whether the files and their properties are configured properly. Read More... Posted Thursday, February 12, 2009 5:35 PM by Jason | 2 Comments Filed under: SQL 2005, SQL 2008, SQLServerSyndication

• 70-432 Certification Certification Coaching Session

  I found this today over at Born to Learn and thought it was worth sharing… March 24:   Microsoft Certification Coaching Session:  Preparing for your Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance Exam (70-432) 7:30 am PT   Read More... Posted Tuesday, February 10, 2009 9:04 AM by Jason | 0 Comments Filed under: Certification, SQLServerSyndication

• Change Trusted State of Foreign Keys

  Ever want to change those foreign keys created with NOCHECK to CHECK?  Not exactly an earth shattering requirement but having all of the foreign keys trusted helps keep the relationships in your databases solid.  Exactly what a good foreign Read More... Posted Friday, February 06, 2009 9:46 AM by Jason | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL 2005, SQL 2008, SQLServerSyndication, Tpis & Tricks

• UPDATE - ORDER BY and Deadlocking

  I was working on a deadlocking issue a few days ago at a client  The transaction that  was continuously getting deadlocked utilized three SQL statements to checkout and return rows from a queue for the client’s application.  Before going Read More... Posted Thursday, February 05, 2009 8:48 AM by Jason | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL 2005, SQL 2008, Performance Tuning, SQLServerSyndication

• DMV Version of sp_who2

  I put together a presentation on Dynamic Management Views (DMVs) a few months back and one of queries I put together for that presentation was a version of sp_who2 that provided similar results but used DMVs instead. The query has most of the same  Read More... Posted Wednesday, February 04, 2009 8:22 AM by Jason | 0 Comments Filed under: DM Views, SQL 2005, SQL 2008, SQLServerSyndication