Sometimes as a newbie to SQL Server using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) you don’t know about the little gold mines that are within the product that help you be a better DBA or Developer. Template Explorer is one of those. To get to it go to VIEW from the taskbar then Template Explorer. Alternatively, you can reach it with keyboard shortcut Control+Alt+T. When you click on it, another side window will appear showing you a list of all templates available within Management Studio. A basic example would be creating a new stored procedure, this template provides an easy starting point. Microsoft has even gone so far as to incorporate…
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When applying a new SQL Server cumulative update, hot fix, or upgrade SQL Server doesn’t always apply all the fixes in the patch. When you upgrade the database engine in-place, databases you had already stay at their pre-upgrade compatibility level, which means they run under the older set of optimizer rules. Additionally, many optimizer fixes are not turned on. The reason for this is that while they may improve overall query performance, they may have negative impact to some queries. Microsoft actively avoids making breaking changes to its software. To avoid any negative performance impacts, Microsoft has hidden optimizer fixes behind a trace flag, giving admins the option to enable…
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One of my goals for 2018 is to expand the reach of my blog. As a blogger starting out I had my own site I posted to, but my blogs only reached those who followed me on Twitter, Facebook, Google + and LinkedIn. My blog automatically posts to these three sites using a WordPress Jetpack Plugin called Publicize. After a few months, I discovered that syndication could be setup on other sites such as SQL Server Central. This allowed more people the opportunity to read my writing and expand my reach. Many sites, such as these will even send your blog out in newsletters like Database Weekly. Starting last week,…
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I am so thrilled to have the opportunity to expand my writing with my first Simple-Talk article posted. Simple- Talk is technical journal and community hub from Redgate. It in I discuss my passion for my work as a Lone DBA. You can find the full article using the link below. https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/opinion/career/survive-lone-dba/
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Here is a quick blog to show you something I discovered that I didn’t know existed. I was on a Skype call and noted that the presentation I had been watching was no longer audible. I tried messing with my volume, I made sure my sounds weren’t muted and played around with my speakers and still nothing. I could hear the skype call without issues, but I wanted to multitask and continue to listen to the presentation. Finally, a light bulb went off and I thought maybe windows was “doing me a favor” and turning off all noises why I am on Skype. Sure, enough it was. If you look…
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Last week, I got the chance to give my I’m It Survival Tips for the Lone DBA in a webcast for the first time thanks to the PASS Women in Technology Virtual Chapter. This is by far my favorite session to give because it’s real life and can pertain to all us. Whether you are a Lone DBA or part of a team, we all encounter the struggles when handling a heavy work load. I always love the interactions I get from this session. It allows us to share our stories and learn from each other. As a Lone DBA you are on call 24/7. You are required to stop everything and fix things…
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A few weeks ago, I wrote Part 1 and 2 of this series, which was a beginner’s guide to Always Encrypted. In part 3, I am going to go over what road blocks I ran into when trying to implement this solution for a client. The goal of the project was to prevent the DBA from being able to view salary information, while still allowing the application to function without issue. We were able to encrypt the data easily, but the entire process was not without issues. We had to remove default constraint values to get it to implemented. Always Encrypted does not currently support constraints. Fortunately, the defaulted zero…
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Awhile back, if you are on Twitter, you can probably recall my ranting about the 949 indexes I was reviewing. The process was to determine duplicate indexes and consolidate them or discard the unneeded ones. My ranting was not about the duplicates per se it was about the index names. It only takes a second to name an object with some name that tells what the thing is. Below I will show you some examples and give you an easy script that will help you generate your index names. Taking a little time to name things appropriately can go a long way, it can not only be time saving but…
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One of the hardest things you can do as a blogger is to come up with a post topic. Do you make it simple for newbies, technical, or something personal? After figuring out a topic, now you have to write. However, there is a difference in what you say and what will people actually want to read. Blogging is not easy, but without it, all of our google searches to help solve problems would be much less fruitful. It’s important to put your experience into written words to help others, and let’s be honest lots of us use out blog posts to remind ourselves of how we did the first…
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In this post we will pick up where we left off in Part 1, if you haven’t read that please go back and do so. Now that we have encrypted our columns, it’s time to take a look at how we decrypt them inside SQL Server Management Studio or through our applications. You’ll be surprised to see how easy it is. Verify Your Setup First, let’s verify that the table is still encrypted, and nothing changed after you ran through the Part 1 examples. To confirm, simply query sys.columns, script out the table, or query the data to check that the Birthdate column is still encrypted. USE [AdventureWorks2016CTP3] GO CREATE…
