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Tales of when a Log Fails to Shrink in an Availability Group
I received a report that one of my servers had 7% free space on its log drive. Sounded like something fun to resolve. I checked on what was going on and found a log file that was 99% free and a hundred...
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Azure SQL Database vs SQL Data Warehouse
I am sometimes asked to compare Azure SQL Database (SQL DB) to Azure SQL Data Warehouse (SQL DW). The most important thing to remember is SQL DB is for OLTP (i.e. applications with individual updates,...
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PostgreSQL – Learn Online in a Single Day – PostgreSQL Learning Path
PostgreSQL is considered to be one of the most advanced open source database. PostgreSQL is very easy to learn as well as it is very implemented and easy to implement. Along with SQL Server I have been...
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Write-Only permissions
Yep, that’s right, you heard me. Write-Only not Read-Only. I was presenting SQL Server Security Basics at NTSSUG the other night and there was an interesting discussion on the idea of granting someone...
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Tricky TSQL: NOT IN (NULL)
We’ve done this before, but we can go one better this time. Let’s take this step by step. NULL means “I don’t know”. It stand for an unknown value. Nothing can be equal to NULL. We simply can’t say...
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SQL SERVER – Creating a Copy of Database in Azure SQL DB
Recently I was about to undertake an interesting assignment for one of my clients who pinged me for Performance Tuning exercise. Since this is something I have been doing full time in the past couple...
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Are SQL Saturday’s Worth It?
This past weekend I was fortunate enough to be a part of Louisville’s (for those local the ‘ville) SQL Saturday event held at Indiana Wesleyan. Most of you who end up on this site are probably familiar...
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SQL SERVER – Installation Fails With Error – A Constraint Violation Occurred
In my recent past, I have helped around 10 customers who have had similar problems while installing SQL Server Cluster on windows. So I thought it would be a nice idea to pen it down as a blog post so...
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How to Drop Clustered Index on Primary Key Column? – Interview Question of...
Question: How to drop clustered index, which is created on primary key?Answer: If you thought the answer as simple as following script, you are wrong.DROP INDEX PK_Table1_Col1 ON Table1 GOWhen you run...
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SQL SERVER – A Timeout (30000 milliseconds) was Reached While Waiting for a...
Recently I was contacted by a client who reported very strange error in the SQL Server machine. These consulting engagements sometimes get the best out of you when it comes to troubleshooting. They...
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#0381 – SQL Server – Table design – Is it better to use NEWID or...
In most cases, an INTEGER based key on a table is sufficient. However when a GUID is required to be used, it is important to keep in mind that using NEWID() causes more fragmentation in the underlying...
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Join me at DellWorld 2016 in Austin, TX
I will be attending DellWorld 2016 as an influencer/media/analyst participant. This means that I’ll get access to the regular sessions, plus special engagements with product teams to see what they’ve...
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PowerShell – SQL Server Paging of Memory Identification
In one of my recent consultation visits to a customer, there was deep performance related problems. They were unclear to what was happening and what was the actual problem. But these are some of the...
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Everything Old Is New Again: 5 IT Headaches That Never Go Away
Here is a list of the continuing problems that exist in every IT shop around the world. And they aren't all new, either.The post Everything Old Is New Again: 5 IT Headaches That Never Go Away appeared...
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Database Sharding – How to Identify a Shard Key?
I have written a number of posts in the past working on shared databases and the concepts around these can be read at Sharding or No Sharding of Database – Working on my Weekend Project for the...
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Temper, Temper
Possibly the single most influential event in my career happened over 25 years ago. I lost my temper at a client.The client had requested a meeting. They had a new, complex, system they wanted...
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Using The RelativePath And Query Options With Web.Contents() In Power Query...
The Web.Contents() function in M is the key to getting data from web pages and web services, and has a number of useful – but badly documented – options that make it easier to construct urls for your...
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DBCC CLONEDATABASE in SQL Server 2014
In SQL Server 2014 SP2 an interesting new DBCC command was included, DBCC CLONEDATABASEThis command creates a “clone” of a specified user (not supported for the system databases) database that contains...
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Making Azure PowerShell Scripts Work in PowerShell and As RunBooks
Runbooks are very powerful tools which allow you to automate PowerShell commands which need to be run at different times. One of the problems that I’ve run across when dealing with Azure Runbooks is...
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SQL Saturdays and Why We Have Them
There has been some recent controversy over SQL Saturdays after PASS HQ announced some new changes. The changes introduced a new 600 mile radius for SQL Saturdays on the same day, an expansion from the...
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