Over the years, I’ve read more than a few articles about the qualities that are found in the best administrators. These articles focus on soft skills, but sometimes will list…
Be Responsive and Responsible
The Future Isn’t in Databases, But in the Data
In the past year I have earned a couple of certificates from the Microsoft Professional Program. One certificate was in Data Science, the other in Big Data. I’m currently working…
5 More Ways I Can Steal Your Data: Ask the Security Guard to Help Me Carry it Out
In my recent post 5 More Ways I Can Steal Your Data – Work for You & Stop Working for You I started telling the story of a security guard…
The Unifying Force of Data
Someday, we may look back on IT as a subset of social science as much as a technological discipline. Because it sits at the intersection of business and technology, visibility…
Monitoring and Observability With USE and RED
Modern systems can emit thousands or millions of metrics, and modern monitoring tools can collect them all. Faced with such an abundance of data, it can be difficult to know…
VMDK versus RDM: Which One Do I Need for SQL Server?
When it comes to disk configuration options for virtualized servers running on VMware, you have two options: VMFS virtual file-based disk (VMDK) or a raw device mapping (RDM). Which one…
Hardware or Code? SQL Server Performance Examined
CPUs are running faster now than ever before, solid-state drives are replacing spinning disks, and database servers have terabytes of RAM. Because these resources are plentiful and increasingly affordable, it can seem tempting to solve database performance issues with hardware. But consider this example: if CPU utilization shoots up to 90% on one of your servers and stays at that level for a day or two, is the problem lack of CPU power or something else?
How to Recover the Master Database in SQL Server 2012
In my seven years as a production DBA, I can count on one hand the number of times I have need to restore the master database as a result of…
Connect to Windows Azure Virtual Machine Using SSMS
In 2013, Microsoft made it available for customers to utilize virtual machines running in Windows Azure. This allowed customers to run an on-premises version of SQL Server, but have the…
Changing Default Database File Locations in SQL Server
When you create a database in SQL Server and do not specify a file location for your data and log files, SQL Server will rely on the default locations as…