July, 2011

HA vs DR, what’s it all mean

People often get HA (High Availability) and DR (Disaster Recovery) mixed up.  There are a couple of reasons that this happens.  First is the fact that there aren’t any clear guidelines which separate the two.  There are standard terms which are used to help define HA and DR, but there’s...

Any testing on the effect of Hiding NX/XD flag from guest with SQL Server on ESX?

During the webcast which I did for the SQL PASS Virtulization Virtual Chapter on July 13th, 2011 a question came up that I didn't have the answer for.  The question was if I had done "Any testing on the effect of Hiding NX/XD flag from guest with SQL Server  on ESX?".  I hadn't done any testing...

Want to try out Windows Azure for free for 30 days?

If you've been wanting to try out Windows Azure and haven't been able to yet, now is the time.  I've been given an access code that you can use which will give you 30 days of full Windows / SQL Azure for free.  And the best part is there is no credit card required.  Just drop in the code on sign...

Interview with our new whipping boy Adrian Bethune

While at Tech Ed 2011 I spent a good amount of time talking with Adrian Bethune (@canon_sense) who is the new product manager for SQL Server Manageability, originally hired onto the team by the magnificent Dan Jones (

Updated SSMS Shortcut Key file

I've updated the SQL Server "Denali" settings file to include the CTRL+E and CTRL+X hot keys.  You can find the new file in the same location as the old one so you only need to download it once. Denny

Resetting SSMS shortcut keys in SQL Server “Denali” CTP 3

If you did what I did when you installed CTP 3 of SQL Server "Denali" (which happened when I uninstalled CTP 1 then installed CTP 3) you'll be in for a rude surprise, a lot of your shortcut keys that you've been using for years don't work any more.  This is to say the least VERY annoying, and...

Database %d was shutdown due to error 9002 in routine ‘HeapPageRef::Update’.

So I hit the error in the title the other night while converting a heap to a clustered index on a production system.  After this error poped up, some other nasty stuff showed up in the error log, which I've included below.

Error: 9002, Severity: 17, State: 4. The transaction log for...

Transaction log growth best practices

There is a lot of talk online about transaction log growth and what you should do. There are two answers to this question, and in this post I'll give you both answers. The theoretical answer is that you want to grow your transaction logs in 8 gig chunks. This will maximize the amount of space...

How HyperBac worked for me

I recently installed HyperBac on a clients SQL Server to reduce the amount of space needed to store their backups.  Specifically we were looking to reduce the amount of space the log backups took, but I was curious to see how much space the full backups would be reduced by. The full backups...

What does WITH (NOLOCK) actually mean

Contrary to popular belief WITH (NOLOCK) isn’t actually the SQL Server “Turbo” button.  While it may appear that way, there’s actually some stuff going on in the back that makes it look this way.  Understanding what is happening is critical to using WITH (NOLOCK) correctly. When you...