December, 2008

Happy New Year!!

Have a happy New Year. Go spend the night with family.

That’s what I’m doing tonight.

Denny

New Years Resolutions for 2009

I’ve been tagged by Denis Gobo for a New Years Resolution post.  I’ve only got a couple of things to put, since I’m not a big fan of New Years resolutions.

Upgrade our production systems to SQL Server 2008
I’ve been speaking about SQL Server 2008 since before it was released.  It would probably be nice if I actually upgraded our production systems at the office.  It’s just a matter of time to actually get it done.

Get started writing a SQL book of my own
In 2008 I wrote a few chapters for a couple of books for other people.  In 2009 I’ll attempt to write my own.

I’ll tag Jason Massie and Tom Larock.

Denny

Managing Multiple Databases on a Single Server

Back in November I wrote an article for Enterprise IT Planet entitled “Managing Multiple Databases on a Single Server” in which I go over the potential problems you can face when consolidating instances of SQL Server.

Denny

Order To Restore Database Backups In

I’m often asked (both online and offline) once you have all your database backups, in what order to they need to be restored in?

I’ve actually asked this very question to senior level DBAs as an interview question before, and gotten some very interesting answers.

When restoring your database you start with your full backup, then restore your diffential backup (if you have taken one) then restore all the transaction log backups begining with the backup taken after the full (or differential) and going until the last transaction log backup available (or until you reach the point in time you want to stop the restore at).

Denny

What should I do when my Windows Admin wants to put an anti-virus on the SQL Servers?

My answer to that one is pretty easy.  Let him / her.  I’m a firm believer that every machine on the network should have anti-virus software installed.  Most anti-virus software is pretty lightweight (especially compared to the amount of hardware that your SQL Server has), and if a virus did get onto the SQL Server the results could be awful.

Continued »

VMware 3.5 won’t start any VMs if the Licensing server is down

So tonight I finely got around to patching the fourth VMware ESX 3.0.2 server to 3.5 Update 3.

The other 3 servers went just fine, quick reboot when done and back up and running in no time.

So experience said that the fourth one would be no problem…

Continued »

sp_replwritetovarbin Heap Overflow Code Exploit Code In The Wild, Works By Using Our Good Friend SQL Injection

For those living under a rock there is a new SQL exploit in the wild.

Dennis did an excellent write up of it already so I’ll refer you do <. for his entry and save myself the time of writing what has already been written.

Denny

Development of SQL 2008 SSIS Packages Requires SSIS Service

Unlike in SQL 2005, when developing SSIS packages in SQL Server 2008 BIDS you must have the SSIS service installed on your workstation.  This is a change from SQL Server 2005 where you did not have to have the actual SSIS service installed on your workstation.

It doesn’t appear that you actually need to have the service running.  I have stopped the SSIS service on my workstation and I am still able to run my SQL 2008 SSIS packages, however I would recommend setting it to manual rather then disabled just in case BIDS needs it running for some reason.

If you try and edit an existing package without the SSIS service installed an error message will be displayed saying that the service needs to be installed.

Denny

Its time for a code freeze again

Its the holidays again, and that means its time for a code freeze. Code freeze’s are handy for a few reasons.

1. People like to take vacations this time of year for some reasons. With a code freeze in place everyone can spend the holidays with family rather than with the servers.
2. With everyone taking time off, if new code has a problem finding the people who actually wrote the code may be an issue.
3. It boosts staff moral to not have to worry about pushing new features into production on a skeleton staff.
4. It keeps the families of the staff happy to have them home around this time of year.

While it doesn’t help make the company and money to freeze code, it simply makes everyone happy, and isn’t that what this time of year is really all about.

Denny

SQLServerPedia.com Webcast Archived

I’ve been informed that the webcast I did last week with some of the other editors for SQLServerPedia.com has been archived for offline viewing.

Denny