Welcome to Database Weekly

Preparing for Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 As many of you may be aware, the next version of Windows Server (Windows Server 2008 R2) will only be releasing in a 64bit version. Because the x64 architecture is simply an extension of x86 32-bit architecture, the code for 32-bit apps runs natively on the processor with no emulation. In other words, for most applications the transition should be fairly smooth and painless. However, despite this, Microsoft recognizes that applications will need to be tested for compatibility and possibly updated/optimized to ensure they work well with the new OS. This may be especially true if Kernel drivers are involved. read more... Using Multiple Monitors in Remote Desktop Session Multiple monitor support for Remote Desktop Services allows users to open a Remote Desktop connection expanded across all the monitors on the client computer regardless of the client monitor configuration. With this feature, the user can fully utilize all the monitors connected to the client computer for the Remote Desktop connection thereby providing extra desktop space and an almost seamless experience with the client desktop that is much improved over “Span mode”. read more... The Business Value of Cloud Computing I have written about cloud computing and specifically Azure Services Platform several times in the past. As we approach the market release of Azure Services Platform (Microsoft’s Windows cloud platform as a service) I thought it might be a good time to step back and write about the business value of cloud computing. read more... Transfer permissions between objects in SQL Server 2008 Sometimes we have to transfer the permissions from one object to another. Here the object could be a table or view. We can write a straight forward script using GRANT and REVOKE statements if this requirement is for one or two objects. But what if more number of objects are involved and the permissions that exist at the time of development might change by the time you deploy the code in production read more... Internet groans under weight of Michael Jackson traffic The passing of pop icon Michael Jackson affected numerous services across the Internet in major ways Thursday evening. As fans and onlookers tried to locate and pass on news, various sites were pushed to their limits, with Google describing the incident as "volcanic." read more... Anti-database movement gains steam NoSQL community gathers; but can enterprises take open-source database alternatives Hadoop and Voldemort seriously? read more... Week in Microsoft: Windows 7 gets priced In this week's top Microsoft news, we cover Windows 7 pricing and preorders, the expiration of the Windows 7 beta, Microsoft Hohm, Windows 7 packaging, Microsoft Security Essentials, and the MAP Toolkit 4.0 beta. read more... PowerShell and SQL Server: Script all Tables This is a script that I found/put together/re-arranged that will script out all of the tables from a database - in this case, Adventureworks2008. You need to change the BWOODY1 part to the name of your server, and the SQL2K8 part to your Instance name. You can change the database name as well, of course, and a better method would be to make a function out of this and feed those variables in. read more... Building a robust setup experience with Reporting Services This post is intended for ISVs or Product Development organizations who are planning to integrate Reporting Services into their product. Over the years I have seen a number of products do this and some get it right and some encounter issues. The part of the problem I’d like to focus on is recommendations for building your product’s setup/installation program when you know you have a dependency on Reporting Services. read more... SSIS - Creating a Deployment Manifest Using a Deployment Manifest in SSIS allows you to deploy a set of packages to a target location using a wizard for installing your packages. The benefit to using it is the nice user interface that a wizard provides. The disadvantage of using it is it’s lack of flexibility. read more... Querying the Procedural Cache on Canada Day (July 1st) The goal of this post is to understand the procedure cache and execution plans to ensure we use fewer resources and that queries run better. Better means higher throughput, more concurrency and fewer resources read more... How to Become an Exceptional DBA, 2nd Edition, Now Available Free If you would like a free PDF copy of this book, you can visit this link and download it. You will need to click on the red button named “Download Your Free DBA Resources Now”. read more... Transaction Rollbacks with Identity Values Have you ever noticed unexpected gaps in sequences in IDENTITY columns? Even though you’ve got transactions set up for your inserts and a no-deletion policy, you find that there are missing values in what should be an unbroken sequence of numbers. The problem could be partially related to transaction rollbacks. read more... When CHECK constraints using UDFs fail for multirow updates I have made up a simple example when a CHECK constraint that uses a UDF should succeed but always fails. read more... SQL storms from your data grids As organizations start to deploy various data grids into their application layers, they may start to experience what I’d call a SQL storm—a massive number of simple SQL requests that are issued over a large number of concurrent database connections at a high frequency. read more... Spooky: What do you connect to? I only recently discovered that SSMS will connect to different things. For instance, press the "New query" button. What were you connected to? The answer is the same server as your "current" server. But what is the current server? It is the server where you happened to have focus when the pressed the "New query" button. So, can you say whether you had focus in a query window, Object Exporer or Registered Servers? read more... Outer Joins Outer joins are one of the most widely misunderstood table operators. As useful as they are, it is very easy to incorrectly apply predicates in outer join queries and introduce logical bugs that are very difficult to troubleshoot (or spend hours trying to figure out why a particular query does not produce the desired results). This article demonstrates common misunderstanding about outer joins and how to properly use them. read more... Microsoft Connect - Enhanced Syntax For Insert Into Statement I've posted a feedback on Microsoft Connect about how to enhance the INSERT INTO syntax. Especially for INSERT INTO ... EXEC ... read more... Forced Parameterization: A Turbo Button? never had the need to turn on the PARAMETERIZATION FORCED database option until this week. We pretty much use only stored procedures for our internal applications so the execution plans are almost always in cache and reused. read more... Microsoft named a leader in Database Management Systems Market Forrester Research has named Microsoft a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Database Management Systems, Q2 2009. (June 2009). Forrester writes that Microsoft is “The most aggressive DBMS vendor with a strong road map.” read more...