August 2008 Blog Posts
There are times when I need to run some process using credentials other than my current security context, such as when my userid doesn't have permissions to a remote resource but another userid does. I can easily do this interactively via the "Run as..." option (right click a process and then enter credentials) or via the runas command in a cmd window. The problem with these though is that I have to type in a password, which creates a problem when I want to do this as a scheduled job. In the past, I've written a batch file to map...
EDIT: There is a new version of this stored procedure.
I've made several changes to my backup stored procedure, isp_Backup. I fixed a few things and added some much needed features. Here are all of my changes:
Fixed the retention code so that only those files that pertain to the type of backup are deleted. I had previously decided that I wanted all files older than @retention to be deleted, however I've changed my mind due to requests from my blog readers.
Added support for database names with spaces, dashes, single quotes, and other...
Has anyone used SQL Server FineBuild before? According to the web site, it "provides 1-click install and best-practice configuration of SQL Server 2005."
It doesn't mention anything about clusters though, which is what I'd be interested in as installing SQL Server on a cluster is a bit of a pain.
Do you know of other tools that simplify the installation of SQL Server? Do they work on clusters?
SQL Profiler is a great tool that allows you to see what's going on inside SQL Server. You can find out what your worst performing queries are, how often a query is executed, and loads of other stuff. I'm typically interested in the things that are impacting performance such as long durations of stored procedures.
One important thing to know when running a trace using SQL Profiler is that the trace can degrade performance. To minimize its impact, you should follow these best practices:
Never run SQL Profiler on the database server
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With hyper-threading and multi-core CPUs, it isn't easy to find out how many physical CPUs (or sockets) there are on a server. Recently we were given such a task to ensure we were properly licensed.
Read more here.
Microsoft "confirms" the small world theory. We are linked by 6.6 degrees of separation.
Read more here.