I ran into an interesting error the other day while doing a partition switch. Partition switch failed because : column ‘xyz’ does not have the same ANSI trimming semantics in tables ‘a’ and ‘b’ It turned out it was because the ANSI_PADDING setting was different between the two tables (well, for a single column). So…
Category: General BP
Updated SQL Server on VMware Best Practices Guide
I am proud to announce that we contributed to the latest revision of the Microsoft SQL Server on VMware best practices guide, freely available at this address. This document outlines some of the common VM-level tweaks and adjustments that are made when running enterprise SQL Server VMs on VMware platforms. This guide is considered a must-read…
Limits vs Goals
It’s that time again. Kennie Nybo Pontoppidan (b/t) is the host this month and has a fun topic for us. The daily (database-related) WTF Database horror stories. Things that make your eyes pop and not in a good way. What a fun topic! But not an easy one for me. Generally, when I see a…
Event storming! It’s raining emails!
One of the most common ways to get an event notification is by email. So what happens when you get 500 emails in a day and only one or two are actionable? Do you read every single email? Spending quite literally hours to find those one or two gems? Or do you just ignore the…
The Costs of Hiring Cheaper Consultants
From time to time, I see posts in forums from people complaining about how much some consultants charge. A really good consultant is never going to be cheap. That’s just the law of supply and demand at work right there. When I was consulting, I had plenty of people balk at my consulting price. I…
The Right Way To Attend PASS Summit
TL;DR – there is no right, or wrong way to attend the Summit. Decide on the things that are important to you, and what you want to get out of the days while you are there, and focus on those. With the 2016 PASS Summit coming up in a few weeks there are lots of…
Re-Evaluating Best Practices
I was reading a blog post from my friend Randolph West (b/t) on Best Practices and a thought struck me. Starting with Randolph’s definition of a best practice (he got it from Wikipedia and it’s more than good enough) A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to…
You Have One Job
I’m sure most if not all of you are familiar with the meme “You had one job”. I was reminded of this meme this past Friday when I headed out to run an errand at lunch time. There were 3 guys standing in the middle lane of a busy intersection, 2 were road workers and…
Best Advice Ever: Learn By Helping Others
I remember when back in 2001 my friend and former SQL Server MVP Carlos Eduardo Rojas was busy earning his MVP street-cred in the NNTP forums, aka Newsgroups. I always thought he was playing the Sheriff trying to put some order in a Wild Wild West town by trying to understand what these people were…
DBA Best Practices - A Blog Series: Episode 3 - Use a Wiki for Documentation
Retaking on this blog series after an extended hiatus. I hope you will enjoy today’s topic on documentation. Boring Work? Nope – An Opportunity One of the often neglected and yet extremely important tasks of any DBA is to document his/her environment. I can certainly relate to those of you who haven’t written a…