I first heard about the possibility of database cloning way back in version 7.0 and thought it sounded like a great idea. Who wouldn't love to have a bunch of identical little databases running around, of smaller size and easier manageability? Cloning a database means creating a statistics only copy of it, so that you can examine ...

Recently, I got sucked into importing Excel sheets into a database. I had thought, well that's easy with a tool such as SQL Server 2000 DTS Import/Export Wizard or SQL Server 2005 Import/Export Wizard. Needless to say, the Excel import business ran into a snag. With the error messages from the wizard not being really helpful, I ditched the wizard ...

Let's say you run sqlio.exe as follows: D:\sqlIO -kW -t32 -s30 -dE -o1 -fsequential -b8 -BH -LS Testfile.dat The output typically may look like this: sqlio v1.5.SG using system counter for latency timings, 1999980000 counts per second 32 threads writing for 30 secs to file E:Testfile.dat using 8KB sequential IOs enabling multiple I/Os ...

Have you ever run into a situation where you'd like to search many of your SQL Server instances to look for a specific piece of information? Ideally, you should maintain an inventory database of all your SQL Server instances so that all you need to do is query that database. In case you don't have such an inventory (shame on you!) or the inventory ...