If you’re a SQL Server Database Administrator and you don’t know what CHECKDB is then you need to stop whatever it is your are doing right now and read this. Seriously, just go ahead and do it now. It will only take you ten minutes to get to grips with the basics and it could […]
SQL Snippet: Who owns that SQL Server Job?
Here is a handy T-SQL script that will list all SQL Server Agent Job owners by job. From an administration perspective, this query can come in handy when you need to ensure/validate the job owners on your server. One common mistake that I have seen is that when a user creates a new SQL Server […]
SQL Snippet: What SQL Server Agent Jobs were running at that time?
Here is a SQL Snippet that can be used to identify the SQL Server Agent Jobs that were running on a server at a particular point in time. This can come in very handy if you need to troubleshoot a performance issue after the fact and want to find out if there were any jobs […]
SQL Snippet: SQL Server Wait Types
Here is a handy little SQL Snippet that will return information about those all important SQL Server Wait Types for your server. It uses the SQL Server Dynamic Management View (DMV) sys.dm_os_wait_stats in order to extrapolate the desired information. A column has also been added to provide details of the percentage of total wait time […]
SQL Server Reporting Services Tip: email subscription tweak
What’s the problem? How to configure SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 to permit users to assign the delivery email address for their own subscriptions. Why does SQL Server work this way? When you subscribe to a report, the e-mail delivery settings you work with vary depending on whether your Role includes the “Manage individual subscriptions” […]
Solutions to common T-SQL problems
Some of the moderators over at the MSDN SQL Server Forums have got together and collated a reference of solutions to common T-SQL problems. As always, all quality resources get added to the SQL Server Resrouces area of this site.
Generate a SQL Random Number in SQL Server
One of my favorite SQL Server authors, Michelle Ufford recently posted her method for generating a sql random number, in the post Random Number Generator in T-SQL. This got me thinking and I decided to do a little investigation of my own to identify what is indeed the best method to generate a random number in SQL Server. What is […]
DMV Query to identify all active SQL Server Sessions
You may already be aware that I am a big advocate of the SQL Server Dynamic Management Views (DMV’s) and the benifits that they bring to the Database Administrator. They certainly came in handy with a requirement I had recently whereby I needed to identify the IP Address of a specific SQL Server Login and […]
SQL Server Stuff Discovered This Week
Virtualisation As you may already know, I am big fan of the work of Brent Ozar, a talented SQL Server professional and online author of excellent quality SQL Server content. I particularly enjoy his podcast series and think the clear, direct style of his presentations are brilliant. You can learn a great deal in a […]
What is your biggest SQL Server mistake?
You know the one I am talking about. We have all been there at some point. You get that awful feeling of dread as a chilling realisation sets in and you ask yourself, oh my god did that actually just happen. Sure you can laugh about it now though, right. So come on and share […]
Performance Dashboard Report – Datatype Overflow Error
When you try to execute the Performance Dashboard Reports for the first time, you may be presented with an error of the form: “the difference of two datetime columns caused overflow at runtime” This is because the DATEDIFF function returns an int value and once you have a connection that is more than 24 days […]