Data is the key to your organization’s future, but if it’s outdated, irrelevant, or hidden then it’s no good. Maintenance and administration of databases takes a lot of work. As database administrators, we often tend to automate most of these repetitive tasks. A database refresh is one of the most common tasks performed by most […]
In the article, we’ll walk through the concepts to understand database snapshots, and their benefits and limitations. This article will help you decide when to use a database snapshot, and when to use a backup. In some cases, the database relying on database backup and restoration operation is not a viable option. Let’s dig into […]
Data extraction is a pivotal part of any business process particularly when it comes to running reports and facilitating business decision-making. In the article, How to configure OData SSIS Connection for SharePoint Online, I covered data extraction off a SharePoint Online list using SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). You would have noticed in the aforementioned […]
Database administrators are often requested to refresh a database, mostly to create a live copy of the production database to the test or development environment. This is done so that the development or the test environment closely resembles the production environment; this way, we prevent many undesirable issues when running the application in the production […]
This article is a collection of SQL Server blogs we have curated, ordered by Alexa rankings (at the time of posting). If you notice a blog we missed, please let us know in the comments below.
One of the most important roles of a database administrator is to constantly protect the integrity of the databases and maintain the ability to recover quickly in case of a failure. In light of this, it’s critically important to have a backup-and-recovery strategy in place in order to be ready for an emergency. A key […]
This collection of content will provide an overview of top SQL Server books, with Amazon links for each book. The list is a combination of top Amazon SQL Server books (by the highest number of customer reviews) and the books included on other available ‘Top SQL Server books’ lists (see reference links at the bottom) […]
SQL Server backups, in itself, is a vast subject; so vast, there are multiple books written about them. In this article, however, we are going to focus on the types of backups that are available to us, and understand how to pick what we need, and what aspects we base that decision on. This understanding […]
SQL Server Management Studio aka SSMS is the default integrated graphical user interface tool that is used to access, administrate, configure, manage, query and monitor the different SQL Server instances that are hosted locally at the user machine, remotely on a server or anywhere in the cloud. It is a comprehensive environment that allows us […]
A recovery model is a database configuration option that determines the type of backup that one could perform, and provides the ability to restore the data or recover it from a failure. The recovery model decides how the transaction log of a database should be maintained and protects the data changes in a specific sequence, […]
Introduction As with everything else, all good things must come to an end. After hanging around for a good decade SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 has started the countdown to its End of Life. D-day for SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 is set to the 19th of July 2019. […]
This article is part of the SQL Server Tools series, aimed at giving you an idea of the available tools and techniques to build applications using SQL Server tools. The first article of the series covers the rudimentary DevOps concepts and discusses on a high level, the overview of SQL Server tools that can be […]
Intended audience This document is intended for application developers and database administrators who plan to migrate an Oracle Database to Microsoft SQL Server. Context Nowadays, most IT professionals are aware that Oracle Database is a very good database solution, but it’s not inexpensive, to say the least. If you want to partition a table in […]
This is the second article in the “Backup and Restore (or Recovery) in SQL Server” stairway series (see the full TOC below). This article deals with the different phases of data management life cycle and it encompasses the following topics: Introduction to data corruption Defining data corruption and its causes Discussion on the impact of […]
This article gives the overview of the Database Migration Assistant Tool to access, plan and migrate the SQL Server from an old version. Database migration is part of the DBA job. We can’t avoid it, and there are multiple options that can be taken: From SQL Server to SQL Server From another platform (Oracle Database, […]
Of late, there’s been a lot of noise around the term, GDPR. Chances are, some of us even had to go through learning sessions targeted at IT professionals to learn about what this new standard of data protection means. GDPR is primarily a European privacy law which sets a new bar, globally, on privacy rights, […]
In a manner of speaking, planning and implementing a SQL Server backup design is an art. Backup, Restoration, Recovery, Business Continuity Plans (BCP), and Disaster Recovery (DR) are different phases of data revolving around the discussions involving data backup. In other words, it’s about how we ensure to retain the business data through any sort […]
Every DBA, even a beginner, may walk through the SQL Server backup screen multiple times per day. It is mandatory that you know every single detail of every single option you have in the most repeatable task you could do as a DBA. In this article, I will be discussing every option available in full […]
Description Technical training is an important part of our careers. Meeting professionals, learning about new technologies, and making the most of the time and resources that we have can make a profound difference on the work that we do. SQLSaturday provides a quality, inexpensive, and fun way to learn and get involved in the SQL […]
Introduction This article will explain the main features in SQL Server 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2012, 2008, 2005, 2000, 7, 6.5, 6.0, 4.2, 1.1 and 1.0. In the past, the first SQL Server versions supported OS/2 (an operative system created by Microsoft and IBM) and Windows. Now, the new versions of SQL Server (vNext and […]
With a distinct lack of up-to-date, fully featured or built-in options to get Reporting Services content cleanly from A to B, it can often be a challenging task maintaining proper Development and QA environments or even moving reports from a SharePoint integrated installation to a native mode one, and vice versa. I want to explore […]
Introduction I was training some Oracle DBAs in T-SQL and they asked me how to create arrays in SQL Server. I told them that there were no arrays in SQL Server like the ones that we have in Oracle (varray). They were disappointed and asked me how was this problem handled. Some developers asked me […]
Introduction One of the new features announced with SQL Server 2017 is support for the Python language. This is big! In SQL Server 2016, Microsoft announced support for the R language – an open source language ideally suited for statistical analysis and machine learning (ML). Recognizing that many data scientists use Python with ML libraries, […]
The SQL Server Query Store is a relatively new feature introduced in SQL Server 2016. It is basically a SQL Server “flight recorder” or “black box”, capturing a history of executed queries, query runtime execution statistics, execution plans etc. against a specific database. This information helps in identifying performance problems caused by query plan changes […]
As all other database engines that require a GUI too to interact with, Microsoft built SQL Server Management Studio as a tool that provides an environment to manage, configure, monitor and administrate the SQL Server infrastructure for different kind of instances, that are installed locally at your machine, on a remote server with Windows or […]
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