Category: SQL Server

Code Club at Ridgeway School Croydon – feedback from first 2 weeks

As I wrote about last month, following an initial presentation about code club to the year 5 assembly at Ridgeway primary school in Croydon, we’ve now started our first term of teaching and we’re 2 weeks into the course. I wanted to share some feedback about lessons learnt to date. 1. The assembly was a great… Continue reading Code Club at Ridgeway School Croydon – feedback from first 2 weeks

using SQL Server DMV sys.dm_server_memory_dumps to scan for memory dumps

Whilst I was waiting for some very long running reporting code to run recently (a 365 million row table in tempdb was never going to be a good thing, but it wasn’t my doing, the business logic was forced upon me!) I was browsing various SQL 2012 items of interest and noticed that there was a… Continue reading using SQL Server DMV sys.dm_server_memory_dumps to scan for memory dumps

I’m recruiting a SQL Server DBA

I’m looking to recruit a SQL Server production DBA for my current employer, dotDigitalGroup. If you fancy coming and working on a big sector leading SaaS project with some very intelligent developers and technicians, check out the advert here http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/22183/sql-server-dba-dotdigital-group-plc?a=qcXiuBO and our dedicated job site with details about the team here http://www.dotdigitaljobs.com/

SQL Server 2008 R2 cluster setup fails on mount points

(Update from Monday morning, the workaround shown below works for me) Another day, another set up problem (sigh) I was installing a second SQL 2008 R2 instance on a new cluster today. The first one had gone well without incident but the second one had a crucial change in that it used mount points. It… Continue reading SQL Server 2008 R2 cluster setup fails on mount points

Example of SQL Server collation usage and problems

I was discussing with some developers this week why SQL Server collation mattered and what are typical things that can go wrong. This is a huge topic and is an often over looked feature of database and server design, especially when you want to build applications that run in multiple geographic locations and that should… Continue reading Example of SQL Server collation usage and problems

SQL Server script to populate a table of sequential dates in multiple formats

I was writing lots of TSQL today for something I was working on, which in itself is a rather rare occasion since I do so much more infrastructure and architecture stuff nowadays. I needed to write a script to populate a table with a series of rows containing sequential dates. I had to create a… Continue reading SQL Server script to populate a table of sequential dates in multiple formats

Create automated PGP task in SSIS using GnuPG to decrypt files

Previously I wrote about my efforts to automate the decryption of files with SSIS using the gpg2.exe which comes as part of the GnuPG package. The original article is here SSIS Task to decrypt PGP files automatically However after deploying the working solution into production, to be run as a scheduled task, I found out… Continue reading Create automated PGP task in SSIS using GnuPG to decrypt files

Step by Step procedure for rolling upgrades to database mirroring for SQL Server 2008

Here’s something I was up to during the week. It’s a fairly mundane task, but despite that one which is very important, both to the client I was doing it for, and for most people generally who run this type of configuration. The databases I was working with were part of a true 24×7 configuration where any… Continue reading Step by Step procedure for rolling upgrades to database mirroring for SQL Server 2008

Tracing select statements on specific objects in SQL Server without using Profiler

I published a blog post with Basefarm last week about tracing select statements in SQL Server without using profiler. It demonstrates how to use SQL Audit (based on extended events) to record any select statements issues on particular tables over a prolonged time period in a scalable lightweight way. Although SQL Audit was designed as… Continue reading Tracing select statements on specific objects in SQL Server without using Profiler