I frequently see recommendations to regularly run sp_cycle_errorlog, so that the errorlog doesn't become huge. My main concern with that is that the errorlog contains valuable information. When I do a health check on a SQL Server machine, I want a few months worth of errorlog information available. I typically use my own scripts for this, ...

How often do you do this? Look over each message (type) in the errorlog file and determine whether this is something you want to act on. Sure, some (but not all) of you have some monitoring solution in place, but are you 100% confident that it really will notify for all messages that you might find interesting? That there isn't even one little ...

Remote Desktop Services Component Architecture Poster Grab your own poster! A visual guide to key Remote Desktop Services technologies in Windows Server 2008R2     Virtually Free Get the latest update rollup package for the Hyper-V role in Windows Server 2008 R2 and be sure to bookmark the Windows Virtualization ...

Lucy, You Got Some 'Splainin to Do!' Quest Software's latest community initiative, Windows Azure-based Project Lucy, has debuted! Project Lucy is part infrastructure analytics, part social media experiment, and part performance data warehouse. The best things about Project Lucy include: It’s Free - just like our SQLServerPedia ...

I did a lot of writing in 2010. Unfortunately, I didn't do a good job of keeping all of that writing equally distributed throughout all of the channels where I'm active. So here are a few more posts from my blog, put on-line during the months of November and December 2010, that I didn't get posted here on SQLBlog.com: 1. It's Time to ...

Everybody enjoys a little free training now and then. I've got mountains of free training in the works. Some of it is in-person and local while some are in webcast format. Please join me as you're able! Tomorrow - Wednesday! Wed, Feb 10, 2010 12 pm (noon) MST - PASS DBA Virtual Chapter; Top 10 Administration Mistakes on SQL ...

I just posted a new entry on my SQLMag Tool Time blog that you might like to check out. I'm a big fan of Bill Graziano's ClearTrace tool, but perhaps you'll like the new tool from DBSophic, called TraceAnalyzer, even better?  Compare the two and let me know here. Cheers, -Kevin  Twitter @kekline  More content at ...

I’ve posted a new entry on my SQL Server Magazine blog about two free DMV monitoring tools available on CodePlex.Read the article here:http://www.sqlmag.com/Articles/ArticleID/102837/102837.html?Ad=1Take a look at the two tools and let me know which you like better and why.  Inquiring minds want to know!Cheers,-Kevin Twitter ...

I have finished my article about suggested SQL Server Agent Alerts. Perhaps calling this a ''Management Pack'' is OTT, but hopefully it will be useful to some of you folks. We are talking about having Agent sending email to us when SQL Server writes messages to EventLog. The functionality has been in the product since version 6.0, but I ...

This is a recommendation I believe is worth repeating from time to time: Make sure you match data types when you write TSQL code. Else you in most cases end up with an implicit data type conversion. And in worst case, this conversion is performed at the column side - not the literal side of your query. What does that mean? Consider below: WHERE ...