SQL Server gets an ANSI compliant unique index … sort of

If you work with any of the other big database platforms you’ve probably noticed that SQL Server’s implementation of a unique index is “different” than the others.  Until now there hasn’t been a way to fix that without using a trigger.  Until now… Continued »

The polished turd that is Dell’s Gold Level Support department really isn’t all that supporting

If you follow me on twitter then you’ve heard bits and pieces of this already on my twitter stream.

In preparation for the onslaught of security patches which were released on October 14, 2009 I went ahead and patched all our severs the day before as it had been a couple of weeks since I had triggered patching and I wanted to get everything else installed so that there wouldn’t be any dependency issues with installing the new patches.  All of our servers, about 60 in all, patched correctly except for two of the three servers which host our web application which our customers use.  Now I say that two of the three servers didn’t patch correctly, but the third server wasn’t allowed to reboot so I don’t know if that one patched corrected or not at the time.  But with two machines of the three offline, I wasn’t willing to chance it. Continued »

What color should my hair be for #sqlpass?

I posted a survey over on Security Fight Club to get some input from the SQL community.  I need to know what color I should die my hair for SQL PASS.  The survey will be open until shortly before PASS at which point I’ll announce the winning color.

Denny

PS: I would have posted it here directly but this isn’t my site, so I can’t add plugins to handle this sort of stuff here.

SQL Upgrades are a one way street.

That’s right folks.  Once you upgrade SQL Server versions there is no going back. Continued »

If you want to keep the data, back it up; even if it’s your cell phone!

Another major data loss is showing that if you want to keep your data, its up to you to back it up.  T-Mobile customers who have a sidekick phone are being told this weekend that they shouldn’t turn off their cell phones.  If they do they will loose their address book data and anything else saved on the phone.  Apparently there are some major data center problems going on over at Danger (the folks who make the Sidekick) and the Sidekick relies very heavly on the servers in the Danger data center.  Apparenly there have been problems going on for a couple of days now.  So far there’s no planned update from T-Mobile until Monday.

The problems are serious enough that T-Mobile has suspended the sale of the phone, and posted a very serious notice on there forums “Sidekick customers, during this service disruption, please DO NOT remove your battery, reset your Sidekick, or allow it to lose power.”.

This is just another indicator that you need to be responsible for backing up your data.  You also need to know how your devices work.  Personally I have a blackberry and it is synced up with my Exchange server.  I know that if something happens to my Exchange server, I know that my local copy is fine.  Same goes if there is a problem with RIMs servers.

Don’t rely on your service provider to backup your device, if you want to keep your data back up the data your self.  If your phone provider doesn’t offer a way to back it up, check on the internet.  Most cell phone models have some way to back them up so that you don’t loose everything if something goes wrong.

Denny

Keep your databases off the Internet

Over on the SecurityFightClub.com site I wrote a post about why database servers shouldn’t be on the Internet.

Denny

Data Transformation Services vs. SSIS: The key differences

I recently published an article on SearchSQLServer.com about DTS and SSIS where I talk about some of the differences.  Obvsiolly I didn’t cover all the differences between DTS and SSIS, just some of them.  So don’t go railing on me that I didn’t cover something.

Denny

I’m totally going to crash the Quest event this Friday

Shhh… Don’t tell anyone, put I’m planning on sneaking into Quest’s presentation this Friday (which in itself is a feet when half the people there know you by site) grabbing some of the free lunch, and giving a quick presentation on Virtualization. Continued »

SQL 2005 SP3 Failing to install with password length error

When installing SQL Server 2005 SP3 you may get an error about the password being to short, and it may have nothing to do with your sa password.  It’s because the Install Scripts are trying to create a certificate with a password which doesn’t meet your domain’s password requirements.

If you get this error navigate to the C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Upgrade folder.  Find the script for upgrading the SQL Agent.  Open the script and find the CREATE CERTIFICATE statement.  Make the password longer.  In my case I added 123456@ to the end of the password.  The password is in two different places in the script.

Then open Add/Remove Programs and select SQL Server 2005 and select Change.  Then run though the wizard to complete the installation of the service pack.

Denny

Dear Cade Metz, MVPs aren’t evangelists.

Recent C# programming Guru John Skeet who has been a Microsoft MVP for a number of years was advised by his employer (Google) that he shouldn’t accept the Microsoft MVP award this year.

Personally I don’t understand Google’s doing this, but that’s between John and Google.  I sure that they had there reasons.  My issue is with the article which was written by Cade Metz for The Register.  Cade’s sentence which has me really bothered is “MVPs are little more than Microsoft evangelists.”.

Now, last I checked an evangelist for a product is someone who talks about how great a that product is.  To me an evangelist sounds like your typical Apple fan boy.  Telling anyone that will listen that everything the company puts out is gold, and they can do no wrong.  MVPs as a group aren’t close to being evangelists.  MVPs are some of the most vocal critics of the products which we are MVPs of.  While some MVPs do evangelize Microsoft products, they are the in the minority.

The fact that MVPs are very critical of Microsoft’s products is one of the reasons that Microsoft has the MVP program.  They want out critical feedback so that they can make our products better.  If we sat around saying how awesome there products are Microsoft wouldn’t get any benefit out of the program and it would simply be a waste of money to them.

Within the SQL Server group (which is the product which I’m an MVP for) there isn’t a week that goes by where we as a group haven’t found another bug which we have sent to Microsoft, and in some cases railed on publicly.  Now a portion of the complaining happens in private, but enough of it happens in public that it would be pretty easy to figure out that we as a group are very critical of Microsoft.

Based on the tone of the article that Cade Metz wrote it appears to me that Cade doesn’t hold the MVP program in very high regard.  Based on the comments on the article, neither do some of his readers.  And that’s fine, everyone is entitled to there opinion.  However if you are going to write an article on behalf of a company (like that article is) you might want to veil your personal feelings a little bit better so as not to come across like a total punk.

For the record everything I post on this blog, while hosted on a tech target site is my own opinion and isn’t censored or approved by Tech Target in any way.

Denny