Installation, setup and configuration

Vitor Montalvão

How to download and install the SQL Server Database Experimentation Assistant (DEA v2.0)

April 19, 2017 by

Introduction

I had the opportunity to work and perform various tests with Database Experimentation Assistant (DEA) Technical Preview 1 (DEA v1) and also worked closely to DEA’s development team by reporting some issues and have their feedback on how to solve most of them. Some issues were really bugs and they had them fixed in this new release, the DEA Technical Preview 2 (DEA v2.0).

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Ahmad Yaseen

How to Configure Read-Only Routing for an Availability Group in SQL Server 2016

March 23, 2017 by

The SQL Server Always On Availability Groups concept was introduced the first time in SQL Server 2012 as an enterprise-level high availability and disaster recovery solution that will replace the database mirroring feature. Always On Availability Group provides a high availability solution on the group level, where each group can contain any number of databases that can be replicated to multiple secondary servers known as Replicas.

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Minette Steynberg

Configuring the Azure SQL Database Firewall

February 28, 2017 by

Introduction

The Azure SQL Database firewall lets you decide which IP addresses may or may not have access to either your Azure SQL Server or your Azure SQL database.

When creating an Azure SQL Database, the firewall needs to be configured before anyone will be able to access the database. By default, no external access to your SQL Database will be allowed until you explicitly assign permission by creating a firewall rule.

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Best Practices for Configuring Newly Installed SQL Server Instances

January 20, 2017 by

Often we install SQL Server on clients or we get to clients where they have pre-installed SQL Server Instances. As a DBA we have the Primary responsibility of keeping the Database Up and Running. This responsibility leads to optimizing, performance tuning and many other stuff related to database’s internal objects. While keeping the other aspects in mind many of us have to go through the configuration of the newly installed or pre-installed but un-configured instances. Configuring SQL Server newly instances are not an easy task and a DBA might want to configure an Instance in many ways.

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How to install the SQL Server Utility Control Point and configure multiple instances for monitoring

January 16, 2017 by

As we progress in our career as a SQL Server Database Administrators we encounter situations where managing and monitoring a large number of SQL Servers is the daily job requirement. Monitoring SQL Server is a very vast and detailed area of study. Out of all the monitoring the very basis and critical monitoring in the Resource Utilization Monitoring for SQL Server.

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Vitor Montalvão

How to download and install the SQL Server Database Experimentation Assistant (DEA)

January 12, 2017 by

Introduction

The Database Experimentation Assistant (DEA) is a new Experimental solution provided by Microsoft used to help upgrading databases from older SQL Server versions (MSSQL 2005 or higher versions) to the more recent ones (MSSQL 2012 or higher versions). It accomplished this based in a given workload that is previously captured from the source database and later replayed on the target SQL Server instances for comparison.

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Daniel Calbimonte

How to create and configure Microsoft Azure HDInsight

November 18, 2016 by

Introduction

In our chapter about PolyBase, we presented this new SQL Server 2016 feature to query CSV files stored in Azure Storage accounts. We mentioned that in PolyBase you can query data in Hadoop (HDInsight) using SQL Server. HDInsight is a very popular system in Azure that eventually you will need to interact with if you use SQL Server. That is why we will give an explanation for newbies about it.

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Ahmad Yaseen

SQL Server 2016 Database Scoped Configuration

October 21, 2016 by

SQL Server 2016 introduces a new set of configurations that can be applied at the database level to control its performance and behavior. These configurations were previously applicable only at the SQL instance level before version SQL Server 2016, With the ability to configure settings at the database level, many databases that are hosted in the same instance can now be isolated from each other, with each database has its own customized configurations. The database level configurations allow us also to set different database configurations for the Always On Availability Groups primary and secondary databases to meet the different types of workloads.

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Ahmad Yaseen

SQL Server network configuration

June 14, 2016 by

SQL Server Network Configuration involves enabling the protocols that manage the connection to the SQL Server and configuring the available options for these network protocols. It also provides the means to encrypt the communication between the SQL Server instance and the client applications and hide the SQL Server instance from being browsed. SQL Server Network Configuration can be managed using the SQL Server Configuration Manager tool.

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Robert Seles

Installing SQL Server 2016

June 7, 2016 by

Introduction

Microsoft SQL Server 2016 provides faster transactions and queries, deeper insights on any device, advanced analytics, new security technology, and new hybrid cloud scenarios. Along with these features, comes the new installation setup. Although it is similar to the installation of SQL Server 2014 and other older versions, there are few notable differences:

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Stefan Daniel Plačkov

Step by step installation of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 2012

January 12, 2016 by

SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is the official Microsoft application used for managing all components within Microsoft SQL Server. It is a powerful tool which allows users to control any objects in the SQL Server. It also provides script editing and GUI tools which are easy to use and user friendly.

SQL Server has multiple editions including: Enterprise Edition, Enterprise Core Edition, Business Intelligence Edition, Standard Edition, Web Edition, Express and Developer Edition each with its own features and functions.

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Stefan Bozovic

How to install SQL Server 2014 Management Studio

December 30, 2015 by

There are multiple editions of SQL Server 2014 (Enterprise Edition, Enterprise Core Edition, Business Intelligence Edition, Standard Edition, Web Edition, Express and Developer Edition). SQL Server 2014 has a free edition – Express and while the server itself lacks some options that other editions have, SQL Server 2014 Management Studio is the same and can be used with each of these. Read more »

Murilo Miranda

SQL Server 2014 – Install a clustered instance – step-by-step (3/3)

March 12, 2015 by

This article is divided in three parts, if you started here, check the first and second part to find the previous steps.

Now we need to define if the instance will work in “Windows Authentication Mode” or “Mixed Mode”. I usually choose “Mixed Mode” because there’s always an application that don’t work with domain accounts. By choosing this option you need to specify the password for the famous “sa” login. Notice that you can change the authentication mode anytime! You also need to add accounts to receive the Sysadmin privilege, this is very important… Even more if you choose the “Windows Authentication Mode”.

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Murilo Miranda

SQL Server 2014 – Install a clustered instance – step-by-step (1/3)

March 9, 2015 by

Do you want to install a SQL Server 2014 clustered instance? Not sure how to proceed? What are the requisites? This series of articles will show this, step-by-step.

In this article I’m going to explain, step-by-step, how to install clustered SQL Server instance. The SQL Server version that we will be using is the 2014, or SQL Server 12, the latest SQL Server version, so far…

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Boris Hristov

Slipstreaming SQL Server 2012 and 2014

November 12, 2014 by
Let’s say that you care about your SQL Server environment, but let’s also say that you care about your time too. You are actually one of those people who always strive to do more with less. Now let’s say that you frequently have to install new SQL Server instances or probably you are in the middle of a project in which you have to provide the .iso file of your SQL installation to the System Center guys for them to deploy VMs with SQL Server pre-installed on them. However, because you don’t want to first install the RTM version of the product and then manually patch the instance with the Service Packs, Cumulative Updates or Hotfixes that you think are needed, you are searching for a solution to somehow “embed” all of those fixes into the installation itself! This way, once the instance is installed, it actually has everything already applied. How can you do this and is it possible at all? Read more »
Muhammad Imran

SQL Server Management Studio tutorial – Configuring the environment

June 11, 2014 by
Configuration of the application plays a significant role in any application, when installed. However, some applications are configured at the time of installation (with default settings) while in other cases, manual configuration is done to achieve its real benefits. In the case of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), it is configured by default with the standard settings, and it can be further configured to make the work easier.
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Muhammad Imran

SQL Server Management Studio – A step-by-step installation guide

May 14, 2014 by
SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is the official and preferred client user interface which can be used to manage, configure, deploy, upgrade and administer a SQL Server instance. The tool interface is quite user friendly and comprehensive. It is shipped with every SQL Server version and is regularly updated and enhanced. If you are planning on learning how to use SQL Server from scratch, consider using SQL Server Management studio as a first step on your journey to learning SQL Server. Read more »