Microsoft just announced that Cumulative Update 2 for SQL Server 2016 is now available for download here. There are a number of fixes including one I have been looking forward to regarding the Query Store. See here for more details on that one. But overall it appears this is an update you should seriously consider if you are running QSL ...

  The newest release of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is now available. The details and download link can be found here. If you haven’t already downloaded or tried the new SSMS I highly recommend getting it and giving it a whirl. With the new release cycles we will see new features and bug fixes on a regular basis. Enjoy. Andy

This is something that is totally overlooked, in my experience, with SQL Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2012. On the contrary to what happens with SQL Server 2008, the Standard version of SQL Server 2008R2 & SQL Server 2012 supports backup compression: SQL Server 2008 R2 BOL ...

I know, I know – what’s a database guy doing reading a book on System Center? Well, I need it from time to time. System Center is actually a collection of about 7 different products that you can use to manage and monitor your software and hardware, from drive space through Microsoft Office, UNIX systems, and yes, SQL Server. It’s that last part I ...

Periodically I back up the keys within my servers and databases, and when I do, I blog a reminder here. This should be part of your standard backup rotation – the keys should be backed up often enough to have at hand and again when they change. The first key you need to back up is the Service Master Key, which each Instance already has built-in. ...

SQL Server used to have  cool little tool that would let you track your licenses. Microsoft didn’t use it to limit your system or anything, it was just a place on the server where you could put that this system used this license key. I miss those days – we don’t track that any more, and I want to make sure I’m up to date on my licensing, so I ...

I read Jeffery Hicks’ article in this month’s Redmond Magazine on a new add-in for Windows PowerShell 2.0. It’s called the PowerShell Pack and it has a some great new features that I plan to put into place on my production systems as soon as I finished learning and testing them. You can download the pack here if you have PowerShell 2.0. I’m ...

Don’t be afraid of that title – I’m not talking about Six Sigma or anything super-formal here. In many organizations, there are more folks in other IT roles than in the Data Professional area. In other words, there are more developers, system administrators and so on than there are the “DBA” role. That means we often have more to do than the ...

I read this interesting article on using PowerShell and the registry, and thought I would modify his information a bit to list the SQL Server Instances on a box. The interesting thing about listing instances this was is that you can touch remote machines, find the instances when they are off and so on. Anyway, here’s the scriptlet I used to find ...

I'm working on a PowerShell script to show me the trending durations of my backup activities. The first thing I need is the data, so I looked at the Standard Reports in SQL Server Management Studio, and found a report that suited my needs, so I pulled out the script that it runs and modified it to this T-SQL Script. A few words here - you need ...