Category Archives: Configuration

Requesting a SQL Configuration Change Requires Evidence

Posted on May 17, 2016 by paulwinans

Part of a DBA’s job is making sure everyone is comfortable with proposed changes. I recently created a Change Request to increase the SQL setting Cost Threshold for Parallelism. Here is the justification I provided to get sign-off from the responsible … Continue reading →

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Great post on Compression Options

Posted on October 8, 2015 by paulwinans

We are in the process of implementing Columnstore Indexes. I came across this page while researching and shared it with the DBA Team. http://aboutsqlserver.com/tag/clustered-columnstore-indexes/

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SQL 2014, BIDS and SQL Server Data Tools

Posted on July 10, 2015 by paulwinans

With SQL 2014 the tools used by developers are not part of the installation media and in fact SSMS is not even necessary for some. Be prepared to discuss with the development group what are the options before any SQL installations take place … Continue reading →

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Renaming a Cluster Resource

Posted on March 27, 2015 by paulwinans

We recently moved the server room from in house to a data center. While power, air, security and seismic capabilities were good reasons, it had to happen because the entire company is moving out of the building! Anyway, while the VMs … Continue reading →

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Using SQL To Configure Database Mirroring

Posted on January 3, 2015 by paulwinans

We use database mirroring for replicating data from physical sql servers to the disaster recovery location; SRM is used for virtual machines. I don’t like the point and click interface though. So many screens for a pretty simple series of … Continue reading →

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Updating Statistics

Posted on June 6, 2014 by paulwinans

Statistics and sql server. When people ask me what are statistics I answer with a Google maps analogy: while we know the roads are there, the traffic changes and, therefore, in the same way we know it is best to patiently … Continue reading →

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Making use of the model Database

Posted on February 6, 2014 by paulwinans

All the websites and books talk about how the model database is what all future databases are based on, including tempdb, so add important stuff there. In my experience, there is not a great need to have the same function … Continue reading →

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Execute As

Posted on December 17, 2013 by paulwinans

We all want to have our databases not owned by an individual. Especially the model database. We can run alter authorization on database::<<db name>> to sa after the fact, but why make a problem? An easy way to avoid this … Continue reading →

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Making SSMS Work for You

Posted on June 23, 2012 by paulwinans

I love taking advantage of the customizable keyboard shortcuts in SSMS. You can put in stored procedures to be run when you press certain key combinations. For example, I have sp_helptext run when I press CTRL+5 and an expanded version … Continue reading →

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Changing The Port Used By SQL Server

Posted on May 7, 2010 by paulwinans

We need to change the port sql server uses from the default to… something else. Towards that end I want to make aliases on all the end user computers and other sql servers so they can still connect without problems. … Continue reading →

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