SQL Server

If you ever tried to capture a benchmark on your SQL Server, you probably know that it is a complex operation. Not an impossible task, but definitely something that needs to be planned, timed and studied very thoroughly. The main idea is that you capture a workload from production, you extract some performance information, then you replay the same workload to one or more environments that you want to put to test, while capturing the same performance information. [Read More]

I wish I could say that every DBA has a love/hate relationship with Replication, but, let’s face it, it’s only hate. But it could get worse: it could be Merge Replication. Or even worse: Merge Replication with FILESTREAM. What could possibly top all this hatred and despair if not a bug? Well, I happened to find one, that I will describe here. The scenario I published tables with FILESTREAM data before, but it seems like there is a particular planetary alignment that triggers an error during the execution of the snapshot agent. [Read More]

Let’s face it: column enlargement is a very sensitive topic. I get thousands of emails every month on this particular topic, although most of them end up in my spam folder. Go figure… The inconvenient truth is that enlarging a fixed size column is a long and painful operation, that will make you wish there was a magic lotion or pill to use on your column to enlarge it on the spot. [Read More]

Three years ago, I started to work on a project called ExtendedTsqlCollector. I blogged about it multiple times here on spaghettidba.com. Even if I received positive feedback, I knew that one aspect was slowing down the adoption of the project: the Data Collector. That particular feature of SQL Server has a very bad reputation for being difficult to set up, customize and monitor. ExtendedTSQLCollector tried to address some of those issues, but the damage was already done and I knew that the Data Collector was already on the verge of extinction. [Read More]

If you’re working for a big company, chances are that your IT already has a strategy and tools for dealing with backups. Many objects need to backed up (files, emails, virtual machines, databases…) and vendors are happy to provide software solutions for all those needs. Usually, the first type of object that has to be protected is files: every company, even the smaller ones, have file servers with lots of data that has to be regularly backed up, so the data protection solution found in the majority of companies is typically built around the capabilities and features of backup tools designed and engineered for protecting the file system. [Read More]

Today I was reading William Durkin‘s fine post on Presentation Mode in SSMS vNext when inspiration struck. One of the things that really annoys me when presenting is the transition between slides and demos. Usually, I try to improve the process as much as possible by having the least minimum amount of windows open while presenting, so that I don’t land on the wrong window. Unfortunately, that is not always easy. [Read More]

A couple of years ago I blogged about Installing the SQL Server 2014 Language Reference Help from disk. With SQL Server 2016 things changed significantly: we have the new Help Viewer 2.2, which is shipped with the Management Studio setup kit. However, despite all the changes in the way help works and is shipped, I am still unable to download and install help content from the web, so I resorted to using the same trick that I used for SQL Server 2014. [Read More]

Today I published the first release of ForumSurfer, a RSS reader designed explicitly to be a tool for the SQL Server online community. Here is a screenshot: ForumSurfer has some unique features that will help you help others online: it is designed to help you keep an eye on multiple communities through their RSS feeds it opens questions in the integrated web browser it can update from the feeds much more often than online RSS readers do it has built-in support for boilerplate answers it supports high-DPI displays, letting you choose the appropriate zoom level for individual sites it can import/export OPML files (you can start by importing the OPML file containing all the online SQL Server communities I'm keeping on the radar) What are you waiting for? [Read More]

One of the most popular posts on this bog describes how to enable bitmap scaling is SSMS on high DPI displays, which is a sign that more and more people are starting to use 4K displays and are unhappy with SSMS’s behaviour at high DPI. The solution described in that post is to enable bitmap scaling, which renders graphic objects correctly, at the price of some blurriness. The good news is that starting with SSMS 16. [Read More]

Brent Ozar recently published the feedback he got on his abstract submissions for PASS Summit 2016 and, as he often does, started a trend which some others followed. I think the feedback is interesting and useful for speakers that plan to improve their own submissions for the years to come, so I decided I will publish my feedback as well. I did not get selected and, obviously, I would be happier if I got selected instead. [Read More]