Category: Administration

Administration, Data Warehouse, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Monitor SQL Server CDC with Customer Data Collector

mssqldude

I’ve posted several times over the years here @MSSQLDUDE on the benefits of SQL Server Management Data Warehouse (MDW) for baselining your SQL Server performance and sending those measurements to a central server for monitoring. MDW makes use of the SQL Server Data Collector feature and is a feature you get out of the box. Here are some of my writings on MDW here @MSSQLDUDE: http://en.search.wordpress.com/?q=mdw&site=mssqldude.wordpress.com. There is a debate among SQL Server DBAs about the worthiness of MDW and Data Collectors because they can appear to be a “heavy burden” on your server and provide overhead that you may not … Continue reading Monitor SQL Server CDC with Customer Data Collector

Administration, Monitoring, Uncategorized3 Comments

System Center for the SQL Server DBA: Wrap-Up

mssqldude

I’m going to call the series on System Center for the SQL Server DBA complete with this one last post today. First, here is the full series to date … my apologies for the lack of post naming consistency!! System Center for the SQL Server DBA Intro The Continuing Story of System Center for the SQL Server DBA Monitor SQL Server from System Center Operations Manager SQL Server management pack for SCOM System Center for the SQL Server DBA Part 2: DPM System Center Data Warehouse for SQL Server DBAs What I wanted to point you all to is an … Continue reading System Center for the SQL Server DBA: Wrap-Up

2012, Administration, Monitoring3 Comments

Continuing Series: System Center for the SQL Server DBA (SCOM Data Warehouse)

mssqldude

Not really a new part to my multi-part series on System Center for the SQL Server DBA … I’m going to post more on the other products in the System Center Suite shortly, but I want to go back to the bread & butter tool for the SQL Server DBA in System Center: Operations Manager. OpsMgr (or SCOM) is the tool where SQL Server DBAs can view alerts, events and overall health monitoring of your entire environment including application & web monitoring, server monitoring as well as databases. With the SQL Server Management Pack add-on to SCOM, you get a … Continue reading Continuing Series: System Center for the SQL Server DBA (SCOM Data Warehouse)

Administration, Cloud BI, Data Warehouse, Events2 Comments

It’s a SQL Server Weekend!

mssqldude

Tomorrow is SQL Saturday Philly in our Microsoft Technology Center in Malvern, PA!! Here is the SlideShare link to my presentation on Microsoft Cloud BI This is my blog post from today on SQL Server Pro Magazine BI Blog for Microsoft Cloud BI Here is the SlideShare link to my presentation on Microsoft DW for SQL Server DBAs Have a great SQL Server weekend all!!  Br, Mark Continue reading It’s a SQL Server Weekend!

2012, Administration, Azure, Storage, Uncategorized6 Comments

SQL Server 2012 Database Backups in Azure

mssqldude

SQL Server 2012 inlcudes new & updated features to SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) that provide out-of-the-box integration into the Windows Azure platform-as-a-service Cloud service from Microsoft. It goes beyond just SQL Azure integration as you can now also connect into Windows Azure storage accounts where you can store files and blobs, including DACPAC & BACPAC files, essentially providing DBAs with out-of-the-box backup-to-cloud capabilities. From a DBA’s perspective, this can be very beneficial because this would allow you to take your SQL Server backups and post them into the Azure cloud where files are automatically protected and replicated for high … Continue reading SQL Server 2012 Database Backups in Azure

2012, Administration, High Availability1 Comment

SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups In Action

mssqldude

I think of SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups as both high availability and scale-out database. This is because you can identify multiple secondary servers in your Availability Group that can be marked for read-only. When you connect to the Availability Group Listener, SQL Server will redirect the request of any connection marked as READONLY to the secondary read-only database server automatically for you. Additionally, you can run common administrative functions that take up cycles and locks on your production database server such as backups and DBCC checks to a readable secondary, again making for a higher-performance scaled-out SQL Server … Continue reading SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups In Action

2012, Administration1 Comment

Philly Code Camp 2012.1 SQL Server Presentation

mssqldude

Hi all! Many thanks for joining me at the SQL Server 2012 what’s new session at Philly Code Camp this past Saturday in Abington, PA at the beautiful Penn State campus! Here is the Slideshare link to the slides that I used to walk you through the new features: http://www.slideshare.net/kromerm/whats-new-in-sql-server-2012-for-philly-code-camp-20121. Enjoy! Br, Mark Continue reading Philly Code Camp 2012.1 SQL Server Presentation

Administration, Data Management, Uncategorized3 Comments

System Center for the SQL Server DBA, cont’d SCOM Pack for SQL

mssqldude

My original posting on System Center Operations Manager for SQL Server DBAs start in part 1 of the series here. Today, I want to take just a minute to give you some pointers in getting started using the System Center Monitoring Pack for SQL Server. Notice in that download link, that the pack has been updated to allow you to monitor up to SQL Server 2012, which now also includes monitoring your Always On Availability Groups from SCOM, a very important new feature. One thing that I always mention to DBAs or other IT professionals who are new to using … Continue reading System Center for the SQL Server DBA, cont’d SCOM Pack for SQL

2012, Administration, High Availability, Performance3 Comments

Quick Note on Always On Availability Groups Performance in SQL Server 2012

mssqldude

It’s still early in the lifecycle of SQL Server 2012 (heck, we just RTM’d 2 weeks ago and not yet GA!) but some of the whitepapers, best practices, guidance, etc. are starting to flow out and I’ll make it a point of mine to try and highlight some of these as they come out. That is, the ones that effect projects or customers that I’m working on, anyway. So here is one that caught my eye: I saw this on Books on Line about making AlwaysOn Availability Groups perform better in terms of resolving network names and IP addresses with … Continue reading Quick Note on Always On Availability Groups Performance in SQL Server 2012

Administration, BI, certification4 Comments

Notes on SQL Server BI MCTS 70-448 Exam

mssqldude

Last year, I finally became certified as a Microsoft Technology Specialist for SQL Server 2008 DBA. Here are my notes from that exam along with my studying and certification prep work. As a SQL Server Technology Specialist for Microsoft, I also work a lot with customers and solutions around data warehouse and business intelligence. So, I spent the past couple of months studying up for the 70-448 MCTS exam to become certified in SQL Server 2008 BI as well. I found this one to be much tougher than DBA 70-432. In fact, it took me 3 tries to pass this exam. … Continue reading Notes on SQL Server BI MCTS 70-448 Exam