This month I have a minor update to the Rules-Driven Maintenance code I originally posted back in August 2012. This update has just two enhancements, but they are nice ones, I think: Much improved handling for instances that use database snapshots. Ability to do intra-day differential backups purely by setting maintenance times and limits ...

Back in August I posted a first version of a rules-driven solution for backups, index and statistics maintenance and integrity checks. The system in general has been working well, and has saved my team a huge amount of time and effort. We are coming to the anniversary of its use in production soon. Today I offer an update that contains a few ...

2012 was, simply stated, a year that kicked my butt.  When I wasn't struggling professionally, I was struggling personally.  Health issues, culminating in a diagnosis of Type II diabetes, and the passing of my father soon after Thanksgiving marked my biggest struggles.  I apologize to those of you who are normally on my Christmas ...

I have two new articles up on Database Trends & Applications magazine.  I'd love to get your thoughts and feedback!Welcome to the Weird, Wild World of SQL Server LicensingNot long in the past, SQL Server licensing was an easy and straightforward process. You used to take one of a few paths to get your SQL Server licenses. The first ...

Every now and then I go off on a tangent away from databases and try to improve some of my other important skills, like maximizing my knowledge of the various Microsoft Office products I use in-and-out everyday.  (Let me tell ya, a good shortcut cheat sheet is worth its weight in gold!  Let me know where I can find some of those for the ...

Let’s get one thing clear right off the bat – I’m not typing “Board of Directors” repeatedly throughout this blog post. It’s just too much typing. BoD will have to do. Live with it. Perhaps, you’ve been paying attention to the PASS Twitter feed, read the newsletters, or otherwise stay abreast of happenings within PASS. If you haven’t, here’s ...

Have you ever found yourself wanting to make a major shift - in skills, in roles, in relationships? One of my good friends, Jimmy May (Blog | Twitter), accomplished a set of major career and lifestyle revisions including relocating to Redmond, taking on a huge new level of job responsibility as part of the Microsoft SQL Customer Advisory Team, and ...

Does Your Group Spend Too Much or Too Little? I haven’t been blogging much this winter, as I’ve been buried under a fairly complicated an ugly upgrade project, which, I’m happy to say, is behind me now. There was one notion that kept coming back to me during that project that I thought I’d share. It seems obvious, but it’s an idea that it seems ...

This month's T-SQL Tuesday is being hosted by Allen White (@SQLRunr) and is about sharing your T-SQL tips and tricks. Since I know many people will share their T-SQL magic and wizardry, I thought I would share a couple of productivity tips - so still T-SQL related, but more how to take advantage of some features in SSMS. Drag column list onto ...

One of the things that drives me crazy as I'm getting older is that my brain is losing the capacity to differentiate version numbers. As I speak travel around speaking with customers and at conferences, I find my self saying things like ''I can't recall if this problem was fixed in SQL Server 2000 or 2005. But you don't have to worry about that ...