The initial release of Database Lifecycle Management is now available on MSDN.The site is something called ''curated content''. This means it's a single consolidated location to look up lots of disparate articles and content, all in one easy to search location. This “curated content view” contains the best content, video, and ...

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 ...

Today I want to bring to your attention an issue in the SQL Server Management Studio 2012 restore GUI. In many ways the new restore dialog is nicer than the old one, with new features and added convenience – but, as is always the Achilles heel of GUI tools like this, if you don’t know what’s really going on it can bite you. I’m not sure what to ...

This month I have a minor update to the Rules-Driven Maintenance code I originally posted back in August 2012. This update has just two enhancements, but they are nice ones, I think: Much improved handling for instances that use database snapshots. Ability to do intra-day differential backups purely by setting maintenance times and limits ...

Back in August I posted a first version of a rules-driven solution for backups, index and statistics maintenance and integrity checks. The system in general has been working well, and has saved my team a huge amount of time and effort. We are coming to the anniversary of its use in production soon. Today I offer an update that contains a few ...

Here's a quick tip for you:During some restore operations on Microsoft SQL Server, the transaction log redo step might be taking an unusually long time.  Depending somewhat on the version and edition of SQL Server you've installed, you may be able to increase performance by tinkering with the readahead performance for the redo operations. ...

I have been asked this many times before and again just recently so I figured why not blog about it. None of this information outlined here is rocket science or even new but it is an area that I don’t think people put enough thought into before implementing.  Sure everyone choses some format but it often doesn’t go far enough in my opinion ...

  … Four tortoises were playing in the backyard when they decided they needed hibiscus flower snacks. They pooled their money and sent the smallest tortoise out to fetch the snacks. Two days passed and there was no sign of the tortoise. ''You know, she is taking a lot of time'', said one of the tortoises. A little voice from just out ...

In foreground, attendee makes dreaded ''shoot myself'' hand sign to the speaker.I was just telling the good people of Charlotte about how they (and how YOU) need to read all things by Paul Randal (blog | twitter), except for all of his cheesy romance novels like Caress and Conquer written under the nom de plum of ...

''So what bad has this option done?'', you probably as yourself. Well, not much, but I find it evil because it confuses people, especially those new to SQL Server. I have many times seen people specifying something like 3, and expect SQL Server to keep the three most recent backups in the backup file and overwrite everything which is older than ...