Get required permissions for DMVs
Part of my job at work is to update Transact-SQL reference content. System dynamic management views (DMVs) have permissions that are managed in the SQL Server Database Engine source code, so it’s a little tricky…
What’s new in SQL Server 2025 CTP 2.0
Three years ago, when the first public preview of SQL Server 2022 (CTP 2.0) was announced, I was a few months in at the SQL Docs team, and had very little to do with that…
How do you restore a SQL Server 2000 database in the year 2024?
A discussion on LinkedIn led to this hypothetical “real world” question: Problem statement: I have a SQL Server 2000 database backup that I need to restore to a supported version of SQL Server (preferably SQL…
I don’t blog anymore, but not because I work at Microsoft
Last year I had a health scare that got my blood pressure at 200-and-something over 100-and-something, soon to be wired up to an IV drip, put through a CT scanner, and a couple of weeks…
Connecting to SQL Server Database Engine, simplified
One of the advantages of being on the Database Docs team at Microsoft is that I get to work with amazing people, which means we can respond quickly to customer issues. Recently, a Microsoft customer…
Patch your SQL Server instance today
On 14 February 2023, Microsoft released updates for all supported versions of SQL Server in the form of a General Distribution Release (GDR). A GDR is an out-of-band update that usually includes bug fixes and/or…
You don’t need a blockchain
After writing several posts about a neat feature in Azure SQL called system-versioned ledger tables, it reminded me about something I’ve wanted to say for a number of years now, outside of snarky tweets. Here…
sql2xls goes cross-platform
Last year I released sql2xls, a free open-source tool which lets you throw a bunch of scripts into a folder, run them automatically against SQL Server and get the results back in a nicely-formatted Excel…
I’m a DBA. Do I really need to know Kubernetes?
Welcome to February 2020. It’s the second month of the year 2020! I remember sitting at a server with SQL Server 6.5 installed on it, worrying about the Y2K bug. It feels like yesterday. While…
What is a strong password anyway?
Background Fellow Microsoft MVP Troy Hunt (blog | Twitter) has been operating the website Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) for a number of years now. For the record, “pwned” is pronounced like “owned” but with a…
Don’t install SQL Server from a mounted ISO
Here’s something that seems to keep coming up, but not frequently enough for me to write a blog post about until now: You should not install SQL Server from a mounted ISO file. Instead, you…
Installing SQL Server on Windows? Don’t forget these two useful switches
A few days ago on Twitter I wrote: Couldn’t connect to new SQL Server install because I forgot to enable TCP/IP. I’m the lead author for a Microsoft Press book about SQL Server administration. Aside…
Fix SQL Server with one click
(This post was updated on 5 February 2022.) Tempting headline, isn’t it? It might even seem like clickbait, but that’s not the intention. The SQL Server default configuration is not recommended for production environments, and…
MySQL has this feature that SQL Server needs
In the grand scheme of things, MySQL and SQL Server operate in different realms. It’s difficult to compare them because MySQL is predominantly used for websites as part of the free LAMP stack (Linux, Apache,…
An Introduction to Azure SQL Database
It’s the second half of 2016, and Azure is the new hotness. I’ve raved about Blob Storage, virtual machines, AzCopy, and all those good things. When the dust settles, though, this blog is about managing…