On Saturday July 23rd, the WVPASS and Greater Wheeling Chapter of AITP joined forces to host the 2nd Annual SQL Saturday in Wheeling, WV. SQLSaturday is a one-day free training event for SQL Server professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server brought to you by the local SQL Server community and PASS (Professional [...]

I’ve been conducting quite a few SQL Server health assessments lately so I thought I would write a brief explanation of the importance of “Instant File Initialization” and how I check to see if it’s being used. SQL Server File Initialization The SQL Server storage engine utilizes an initialization process on data and log files. [...]

SQL Server supports numerous commands, most of which are extremely well documented with detailed examples provided in “Books on Line.” However, there are quite a few that were left out of the official documentation and remain unsupported by Microsoft. You’ll find references regarding these in blogs across the Internet and some are more useful than [...]

You got the job because you’re a quick learner, have the ability to understand complex systems, and most importantly, you can troubleshoot.  However you became an Oracle Apps DBA, you’re one now, so the fun starts.  I started this blog to assist young Oracle Apps DBA professionals who might need a little more detail in [...]

If you’re like me, you’ve been hearing a lot about Master Data Management lately.  Master Data Management is not an entirely new theory; it goes back to the Master File idea from the days of the mainframe.  The basic concept is to have a single ‘correct’ set of data that the entire company will use. [...]

The very thought of database corruption makes my skin crawl. Unfortunately, it’s something that all Database Administrators will eventually experience and need to correct. I’m not going to discuss how to recover from this lurking problem. Instead, I’m going to give you some simple strategies to ensure you are aware of the issue as soon [...]

This post is for those of you who need a quick answer to this issue and you’ve already restarted the DTC service and the SQL Server service in that order. Before you start pulling your hair out and running to DTCPing or DTCTest, if it’s ok with all parties involved, try restarting the DTC service [...]

Recently I ran into an issue with the infamous “Cannot generate SSPI context.”  I have run into this issue a few times in the past and it is a problem that usually takes a while to find the solution and fix.  This problem does not deal with just SQL Server.  Usually the help of a [...]

MySQL 5.5.6 is not ACID compliant, here is an example: mysql> drop table if exists mytable1; Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec) mysql> begin; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> create table mytable1 (idontfeellucky int) ; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.44 sec) mysql> show create table mytable1; +——-+—————————————————————————————-+ | [...]

When I investigate a new SQL Server instance for the first time, I perform a number of standard checks to get a handle on the current health of the system. One of the checks I like to perform is a VLF count on each transaction log file associated with each database on the system. Right [...]