When you're developing new Transact-SQL code or modifying some existing code, do you just launch directly into programming? I know that I did just that, for years. It wasn't until I was trying to performance tune some existing code that I realized I hadn't actually taken caching of data and execution plans into account. So all those modified ...

I’d recently experienced a situation where I was getting repeated login failures to a SQL Server where I knew that I had the correct user name and password.  Each time, I’d get error 18456 in response. ''Login failed for user '<user_name>'. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 18456)''. The challenge when troubleshooting ...

Yep, another Agent blog. The topic of job owner has been discussed here before, but this is a specific situation, which potentially is a ticking bomb. First a quick recap of how agent does things: When a job is owned by somebody who is sysadmin, then no impersonation is performed. T-SQL jobsteps will be executed as Agent's own Windows ...

“Git-Go” is something we say in the South that means “right at the start”. I’ve seen several applications for on-premise systems that don’t have much in the way of diagnostics - the developers rely on a debugger, the event logs on the server and client workstation, and most of all, the ability to watch the system from end-to-end. This approach ...

I read too much, and that, my friends, is an entirely separate topic for a blog post. But I thought I'd share with you a little more about what I'm reading because sometimes, if I'm lucky, it might be something you'd enjoy too. So I'm going to start sharing what I'm reading at least once per week, partly so that I don't firehose too many ...

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 ...

Just a short notice that I've released an article about moving databases between SQL Server instances: You find it at http://www.karaszi.com/SQLServer/info_moving_database.asp.

First off - the Pain of the Week webcast series has been renamed.  It's now known as The Expert's Perspective.  Please join us for future webcasts and, if you're interested in speaking, drop me a note to see if we can get you on the roster! The bigger your databases get, the longer backups take. That doesn't really seem like a ...

Interested in my various performance tuning and troubleshooting videos about SQL Server?  These videos feature my good buddies (and uber-SQL Server experts) Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) and Buck Woody (blog | twitter).  View these insight-packed training videos from our SQL Server training events originally presented on ...

On my recent trip to SQLBits with subsequent visits to Dublin, Cologne, and Malmo (southern Sweden), I enjoyed a chance to meet several SQL Server MVPs, including Peter Larsson and Thomas Ivarsson. Among them, I enjoyed Johan Ahlen's article on Pulling real-time data from Twitter using StreamInsi​ght.  You can Find Johan's blog ...