Skills I Used Last Week #2

Back in September I wrote the first version of Skills I Used Last Week, so I thought I’d loop back to see if I was doing anything new lately. The window is really the last few weeks, but I thought I’d stick with the title for now, for continuity! Mostly it’s the same same as […]

Log Backup Failing–A Simple Mistake

Last week I was checking on some stuff and noticed that a couple databases were in simple mode – unusual, but not necessarily wrong, so I asked someone on the team that manages the environment about it. He said that because of the usage it wasn’t critical but they did prefer them to be set […]

Should Apps Use a Dedicated Port?

Most applications connect on whatever the default port is, typically 1433 for SQL, though it’s common to change that to something non-standard as part of security efforts – making it just a different port that all SQL traffic uses. From a pure SQL perspective that’s fine. We can usually identify traffic using Profiler via application […]

No Drama

Someone I worked with recently on the server side of the business had that to say about SQL Server compared to Oracle. His perception as a guy that is on the fringe if not the middle of performance problems is that SQL Server doesn’t need much in the way of care and feeding. It’s not […]

Identity Columns Aren’t Automatically Primary Keys

Identity columns (automatically incrementing numbers) are fairly common in SQL Server, having the merit of simplicity and pretty good performance. As such they are often used as primary keys, and that’s fine too (unless you subscribe to natural keys at all costs). But, they aren’t automatically primary keys. If you want it to be the […]

Oracle & SQL Server, And a DBA is a DBA

I recently spent some time tutoring two Oracle DBA’s on SQL Server so that they would be able to do some crossover work with their SQL Server team. I think a smart move on the part of their employer to invest in the training, as a DBA is a DBA. They know the concepts, they […]

PDF Compression in Reporting Services

Another small thing I didn’t know, Reporting Services automatically does PDF compression in at least the case of data driven subscriptions. Found this after writing a replacement for the data driven subscriptions that we could use on Standard edition and noticing a substantial difference in file sizes (15k vs 65k). Turns out the compression is […]

WordPress 3.1 on SQL Server

I’m now running WordPress on SQL 2008 R2 SQL Express, no issues with posting and related items, haven’t loaded many plugins yet so it will be a while before I can tell you that everything works well. It seems to be a decent setup, you install a must-use (MU) plugin and aside from putting a […]

PASS Update #53 (Bylaws)

This week we posted some pending changes to the PASS bylaws. We try to do a review at least once a year and it’s a hard process. Hard because we have to agree on the change we want first, and then we have to figure out how to state it cleanly because this is a […]

What Should PASS Be? I Challenge You

PASS isn’t what it should be. I hear that a lot, and in many ways I agree with you. We’re finally growing and evolving, but we’re still far from what I think most of you expect from a true professional association. But. I’m not sure you or I have realistic expectations. So I want to […]