July, 2009

Windows 2008, where oh where has all my drive space gone?

If you are using Windows 2008, you may be like me.  Wondering where the hell all this drive space is disapearing to. Continued »

Push vs. pull: Configuring SQL Server replication

I’ve published a new artcile over on SearchSQLServer.com.  This article is titled “Push vs. pull: Configuring SQL Server replication“.  In this article I talk about the differences between the two, and when each should be used, as well as how to combine them to get the best of both.

Denny

Yesterday’s Webcast Recording posted

The folks at Quest and Live Meeting worked overtime to get yesterday’s webcast recording posted already.  This way if you missed the great webcast that Trent Mera and I did you can at least catch it afterwords.

Denny

Join me on Sept 15, 2009 as we talk about Clustering SQL Server without a SAN

On September 15, 2009 I’ll be hosting a webcast entitled “How to Set Up a Cost-Effective Windows Server 2008 Cluster with SQL Server 2008 and Tune The Performance“.  During this webcast I’ll be showing how to use Starwind Software’s iSCSI Server software to replace to need for a SAN when creating your Windows 2008 and SQL Server 2008 server.

The presentation will start at 2PM EST, 11AM PST.  Pre-registration is required using the above link.

Do note that this presentation will be done a little bit backwards as we’ll dive into the technical content write away, then hit the slide show with the SQL Installation is running in the background.

See you there.

Denny

Design the server to fit the database, don’t cram the database into the server

I am so sick and tired of people posting questions on various forums along the lines of “We just bought a Some brand and model of server and it has n hard drives in it.  How should I setup the database on these drives?” Continued »

Changing the default owner when creating objects

When a user that doesn’t have sysadmin rights creates objects by default they will be created in the schema that is the users default schema.  Now the catch to this is that if you grant the user rights into the database via a domain group that domain group then the user doesn’t have a default schema.

So, now how do you fix this?  Unfortunately the only fix to this is to grant the users Windows login as a separate login, then grant this login rights into the database.  You can then grant the user which is mapped directly to the users Windows login a default schema of dbo.

Because of this the user should specify the schema when creating objects.

The downside to this is that they won’t be able to use the object editor to create new tables.  All new tables will need to be created in T/SQL directly.

Denny

Webcast next with on Troubleshooting the SQL Server service

Next week I have the pleasure of presenting another Pain of the Week webcast for Quest Software.  This weeks topic will be on Troubleshooting the SQL Server service.

And as a bonus one lucky attendee will win SQL Server expert Kevin Kline’s new essential reference book, SQL in a Nutshell.

See you on the webcast.

Denny

Non-sysadmins create tables under own schema

When using SQL Server 2000 and the user doesn’t have sysadmin rights, and their login isn’t mapped to the dbo user within the database all objects created will be, by default created under the user schema.

This is the normal behavior of SQL Server 2000.  In order to allow users who are not members of the sysadmin fixed server role to create objects under the dbo schema by default you have to map their login to the dbo user, even if they are a member of the dbo fixed database role.

To work around this, in the T/SQL code specify the owner of the database object.  If your developer is using Enterprise Manager to create the new tables before saving the table, click on the properties button in the upper left hand corner of the Enterprise Manager window (second from the left).  Then change the owner drop down from their username to dbo.  There is no way to default this setting to dbo so it will need to be changed for each new table being created.

Denny

Windows 2008 C Drive doesn’t always extend correctly

When using VMs and Windows 2008 you have the ability to easily grow the C drive on your servers. This makes it much easier to assign only the space needed to the C drive of your servers saving you a ton of space.

However I recently had a few machines say that the disk was extanded in Computer Manager and diskpart, but Windows Explorer (aka My Computer) showed the old amount. And growing the disk a second time doesn’t help. Shrink the partition (either in diskpart or Computer Management) then extend it again seamed to fix it for me.

Denny

Setting up SQL Server Service Broker for secure communication

Today a new article that I wrote was posted up on SearchSQLServer.com.

The article is about setting up SQL Service Broker to use Certificates to secure the traffic between the instances.

Denny