SQL Server

How much cache to allocate for servers that host 500gb databases?

The short answer is as much as possible. The more exact answer is you typically can’t allocate cache to a specific LUN.  You can usually carve up the total amount of cache into read and write cache.  You want as much write cache as possible so that the database writes directly to the disk as...

What are your opinions on using an iSCSI NAS for SQL Server storage?

You’ve really got two questions here.  The first is if I like iSCSI for SQL, and the second is if I like NAS for SQL.  NAS doesn’t support iSCSI as iSCSI is a SAN technology. iSCSI is just fine for SQL Server as long as the server and the storage are on the same subnet, and the network has...

Donuts, Coffee, Lunch and an MVP for $99.

This great phrase (which is way more clever than anything I could come up with) was tweeted by Daniel Taylor (Twitter) last week while talking about the pre-cons which are coming up this week in Tampa. ...

Lets get session state out of the database, and into memory where it belongs.

One of the all to common configuration mistakes that are made is to put the session state within the SQL Server when a website begins to scale to multiple web servers. Some background For those that don't know what session state is, let me take a step back and fill you in. ...

Ever have this conversation?

Have you ever had this conversation with your storage admin? [kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/yZlbLkD46Kc" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /] If you have, then do I have a session for you to attend.  On January 14, 2011 in Tampa, FL I'll be presenting...

Cloud and the law

Moving data into the cloud is a huge thing with Microsoft and Amazon (among others).  However for those in countries that aren't the US there are some major road blocks to putting your data into the cloud. The first issue is that when the cloud provider is a US company (which most of them are...

We are currently running on an EMC SAN. Did I hear you correctly, we should have databases, backups, temp, and logs on the same LUN? Thanks.

No, you want to put them on different LUNs.  IBM is currently recommending that on the XIV array that everything can be put on a single LUN as the LUN is spread over all the disks in the array.  For an EMC array you’ll want to have separate LUNs for each. Denny

Some people really just don’t understand how the technology that runs their lives functions.

So I'm sitting at home reading an article on the NY Times website about the current travel mess in New England, and a statement within the article really scared me (about 2/3s of the way down).

"He wonders why during...

My book “Securing SQL Server” is coming.

I'm happy to say that I officially can't make a single change to my book "Securing SQL Server". The publisher made the last little changes and sent it to the...

What should Developers know about SQL Server?

Back at Tech Ed 2010 a good friend Robert Cain (blog | twitter) and I were wondering the exhibit hall floor and we got stopped by the guys from the Deep Fried Bytes pod cast and they asked us if we'd be willing to sit...