My favorite event at Microsoft's TechEd 2008 conference held in Orlando this year was a roundtable discussion about automating DBA work with several other SQL Server experts.  The session was moderated by Allen White and included myself, Dan Jones (of Microsoft), Steve Jones (of SQL Server Central fame), and Buck Woody (also of Microsoft, ...

I frequently see questions like this – ”I am getting different version numbers for my SQL Server 2000 instances. All I'm aware of is 8.00.2039 - which is SP4.  These are these values I am getting, e.g. 8.00.2039, 8.00.2040, and 8.00.2148”?   Here are two great resources to help you out in the ...

Join me tomorrow, along with Quest Domain Expert Brent Ozar and SQL Server MVP Ron Talmage, for a roundtable discussion on SQL Server virtualization.  We'll discuss a variety of issues that seem to come up constantly in the discussion forums - How are your virtualized SQL Servers going to be used?  Are they running production ...

A lot of people sent me emails asking for a way to get ahold of Quest Software's new DMV poster.  The poster shows all of the major DMVs in SQL Server 2005/2008, what they're used for, and how to query them. You can get the poster (for free, of course) by signing up for and attending the accompanying webcast about DMV's that I'm doing next ...

While I'm recovering from surgery, I've been thinking about what makes a technology poster worth putting up on your wall? As I walked around TechEd last week, there was no shortage of posters available for all sorts of technologies.  Some were mostly diagrams without many words, while others were almost entirely verbal.  Even among the ...

I find that auto_update statistics in SQL Server is a really good thing.  Without it, many third-party applications would simply fall over from lack of preventative maintenance.  With it, they are able to run for extraordinarily long periods of time without really needing a full-time DBA to check up on the databases.   Having said ...

One of the best things about becoming a Microsoft MVP is meeting other MVPs.  I bring this up because last week was the annual MVP Summit in Seattle, WA.  I was really looking forward to meeting Steve Kass.  Steve Kass is one of the smartest SQL Server MVPs I’ve encountered, especially when it comes to SQL questions.  A ...

You'd think an article called ''NASTY RUMORS ABOUT MAXDOP'' would have something to do with Britney Spears or maybe Robert Downy Jr, but in that case it'd be total fiction (at least, it would be coming from my pen).   So, I was en route to the 2008 Microsoft MVP Summit yesterday and I had a chance to catch up on my reading.  You ...

I read a lot of blog posts - a LOT.  Sometimes it's interesting to sit back and evaluate all of the reading that I'm doing to try to glean ways of improving my efficiency.  One thing that has enormously improved my efficiency is installing a Google plug-in RSS reader.  Now, all the blogs that I read come into one sidebar where I can ...

I came across this a few months ago when I was researching security in 2005 and now thought it would be useful to post it here. I have saved code that loops through all stored procedures in the database and grants execute privileges to a database user. I've had it around since SQL Server 7.0. Now I discovered that in SQL Server 2005 you ...