The blog of Andy M. Mallon
Notes on data, technology, and the humans behind the work.
Today, my friend Derik Hammer (blog|twitter) asked about moving SSRS reports between (versions and) instances of SSRS: Derik Hammer@SQLHammer twitter What is the best way to move 2008 R2 SSRS reports into an existing 2012 SSRS instance? Catalog move is …
Continue readingIt’s T-SQL Tuesday, the blog party that SQL Server expert Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) started. This month’s episode is hosted by Michael J Swart (blog| twitter). The topic: SQL Server 2016 is out! SQL Server 2016 is hot off the presses, and Michael …
Continue readingShortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA This series of short posts will demonstrate some lesser-known features, keyboard shortcuts, and other tips that make my day as a DBA more productive. None of these are groundbreaking super-secret features–they are the …
Continue readingShortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA This series of short posts will demonstrate some lesser-known features, keyboard shortcuts, and other tips that make my day as a DBA more productive. None of these are groundbreaking super-secret features–they are the …
Continue readingIt’s T-SQL Tuesday, the blog party that SQL Server expert Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) started. This month’s episode is hosted by Wendy Pastrick (blog| twitter). The topic: Learn something new and blog about it SQL Server 2016 is coming out next month, and …
Continue readingFive years ago today, I officially became a DBA: Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to extend to you our offer of employment for the position of Database Administrator How I got there I got my first job at a software company in 2003. I had no degree, I had no …
Continue readingI pity the fool who needs to shrink his database! It’s a really common question: “How do I shrink my database?” Luckily, there’s also a really common answer: “Don’t.” …but what if you really have to? Perhaps you just implemented data compression, and have 60% …
Continue readingSomeone posted to #sqlhelp on Twitter, asking the following: “Wondered if anyone could enlighten me as to why ISNUMERIC(‘7d8’) returns 1?” Sure enough, SELECT ISNUMERIC('7d8') returns a 1. WTF? d isn’t numeric! OK, sure, if you say “seven-dee-eight” out loud …
Continue readingThis week at work, I noticed CPU on one server seemed pretty high. I wasn’t familiar with this particular server, but based on the applications it supported, I was expecting the server to be under-utilized. I went over to vCenter to look at historical CPU …
Continue readingIt’s T-SQL Tuesday, the blog party that SQL Server expert Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) started. This month’s episode is hosted by Jens Vestergaard (blog | twitter). The topic: Favorite SQL Server Feature. When I saw this topic, I was really excited. My mind …
Continue readingEdit: I've published an updated version of my cheat sheet. Find the latest version by in the sidebar --> I've presented my **Shortcuts from an Impatient DBA** talk a few times now, and I really love it. Everyone learns something, whether you're a Junior …
Continue readingIf you’ve ever looked at sys.sysprocesses or sys.dm_exec_requests (or a number of other DMVs), you’ve noticed there is a column called “sql_handle” that contains some binary gobbledygook. Books Online gives the (un)helpful definition as “Hash map of the SQL …
Continue readingSQL Server supports two kinds of data compression on rowstore data. Columnstore compression is for a different day. You can compress heaps, clustered indexes (on both tables and views), and nonclustered indexes (on both tables and views). Compression …
Continue readingWhat's xp_sqlagent_enum_jobs? If you landed on this post, I'm guessing you know the answer to this, so I'll be quick. `xp_sqlagent_enum_jobs` is an undocumented (and thus, unsupported) extended procedure that gives information on whether a job is currently …
Continue readingSQL Server supports two kinds of data compression on rowstore data. Columnstore compression is for a different day. You can compress heaps, clustered indexes (on both tables and views), and nonclustered indexes (on both tables and views). Compression …
Continue readingI’m really excited to be speaking in Chicago this year. I’m going to be giving my “Shortcuts From an Impatient DBA” session. I love this presentation, and I’m excited to share it in Chicago. How’d you do that?!? This presentation is a series of keyboard …
Continue readingSQL Server supports two kinds of data compression on rowstore data. Columnstore compression is for a different day. You can compress heaps, clustered indexes (on both tables and views), and nonclustered indexes (on both tables and views). Compression …
Continue readingIn SQL Server, auto-update statistics is a database level setting. It’s right there: I’m not going to say whether I think Auto Update Statistics should be on or off. Instead, I’m going to argue that there are definitely scenarios when you want to have this on …
Continue readingFILESTREAM is not a particularly popular feature of SQL Server–if you’re using it, you are in the minority. If you have a database with filestream in an Availability Group, then you’re REALLY in the minority. At my 9-5, this is being done, and it’s apparent …
Continue readingShortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA #11 This series of short posts will demonstrate some lesser-known features, keyboard shortcuts, and other tips that make my day as a DBA more productive. None of these are groundbreaking super-secret features–they are the …
Continue readingI’ve been using SQL Server for a dozen years now, but I’ve only been starting to make friendships and build relationships within the SQL Server community in the last couple of years. More importantly, it has only been in the last year that I would say I have …
Continue readingWhen to use WITH OVERRIDE on your RECONFIGURE statement
Continue readingOn December 5, I’m speaking at QL Saturday #465 in Providence, RI. My session is called “Shortcuts from an Impatient DBA." This is an expanded version of my lightning talk from the New England SQL Server User Group earlier this year. It went over so well, I …
Continue readingOn December 5, I’m speaking at SQL Saturday #470 in Washington DC. My session is called “Wheaton’s Law for Technology Pros” and is based on my post “Watch your step! Don’t become a DBA-hole.” I’m really looking forward to it for lots of reasons, but in …
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