In my previous blog I reviewed the different policy evaluation modes available in SQL Server 2008.  In this next installment I will detail how to initiate a policy on demand using PowerShell. PowerShell integration with SQL Server 2008 is getting more press lately.  In past blogs I noted a few resources to help learn PowerShell, and ...

I have just learned that my old blog will be disabled, so I will be recycling some of the more meaningful blogs to SQLBlog.  This was written last year during an engagement where I was troubleshooting an issue with procedure cache growth.  The good news appears to be that some relief is on the way (SQL Server Procedure Cache: More ...

A few months ago, I blogged about a simple procedure to do backup (http://sqlblog.com/blogs/tibor_karaszi/archive/2007/09/25/tsql-script-to-do-backup-like-maintenance-plans.aspx). Just to let you know that Ola Hallengren has some of his own. Much more elaborate than mine, including things like reorg. Check it out at http://ola.hallengren.com/.

How many times have you asked for a way to turn off the behavior in SQL Server that logs successful backup messages to the SQL Server Logs and to the Windows Application Event Logs? If you are like most DBA’s probably a lot. I have been asking for this feature for ages. I have sent email to SQLWish, filed on LadyBug and most recently on Connect ...

This is frequently asked question, both in forums, as well as in class: How can I though TSQL create new backup files for each backup and have date and time in the file names? The reason for above is most often that you want a higher degree of customization than what maint plans allow for. An obvious such in 2005 is to add the CHECKSUM option to ...

Short answer: no.  This question came up today in the MCT discussion group. My gut instinct said no, but I wanted to test it to be certain. But first a brief background: You can rebuild an index using DBCC DBREINDEX or in 2005 (and now preferred) ALTER INDEX ... REBUILD. Rebuilding an index internally creates a new index and when that has ...

Tony Rogerson brought to my attention that with sp2, a plan that does CHECKDB seems to always do it against the master database. Technicalities seems to be in how SSIS executes SQL commands, separates batches and connection pooling (sp_reset_connection). I created a plan to do CHECKDB against all databases, and this is what I found in my errorlog ...

Shrinking and growing database files cost you resources and have other side effects as well. I have a technical description  http://www.karaszi.com/SQLServer/info_dont_shrink.asp if you want to get into details about it. Sure, you can have valid reasons to shrink, after archiving lots of data and needing to free some disk space for ...

You might have heard that Maint Plans has had some work on them in sp2. One enhancement is that the Maintenance Cleanup Task now allow for removing of backup files based on hours. This can lead to undesired too early cleanup if you upgraded such a plan. I haven't tested this, I just learned it from the open newsgroups, but my guess is that perhaps ...