SQL Server

SQL-Server: What are VLF’s and why should I care about them?

Introduction: What are VLF’s? In SQL-Server, the transaction log is divided into several logical units called virtual log files (VLF). The amount of virtual log files and their size are managed automatically by the database engine. The database engine adds(…)

SQL Server Security: Ensure that SQL Server service accounts are not a member of the Windows local Administrator group

These last few weeks, I work on a project to check the compliance of an instance with the Center for Internet Security (CIS) document. The Benchmark documentation provides prescriptive guidance to secure SQL Server and I develop a tool(…)

SQL Server: Manage large data ranges using partitioning

Introduction:  When it comes to moving ranges of data with many rows across different tables in SQL-Server, the partitioning functionality of SQL-Server can provide a good solution for manageability and performance optimizing. In this blog we will look at the(…)

Attach database error (SMB Fileshare)

Starting with SQL Server 2012, SQL Server supports databases using the Server Message Block (SMB) file server as a storage option. For performance and reliability reasons, SMB 3.0 or later is preferred to use.For architectures like Always On(…)

PosgreSQL + SQL Server = WiltonDB – Part 1 – Installation

I know,  few years ago, it was uncredible to associate SQL Server & PostgreSQL or see Microsoft in the Open source world. 😉 The world changes and we follow it… My colleague Daniel Westermann will enjoy that I write(…)

Boost dynamic SQL with Plan Guides

Recently a customer asked me to check why a load process from a banking application has so poor performance.In fact this process is extremely slow, between 40 minutes up to more than one hour to load around 240’000 rows. As(…)

SQL Server Integrated acceleration & offloading

Introduction I was asked by one of my customers to have a look at the SQL Server 2022 Integrated acceleration & offloading feature. The goal of it is to provide a framework for offloading specific SQL Server workload compute to(…)

The Case of FileTable with Basic Availability Groups

Using FileTables with Basic Availability Groups in SQL Server offers a robust solution for storing non-relational data but requires careful management due to potential risks like data corruption during long transactions and failovers. While BAG ensures data integrity, challenges arise(…)

SQL Server: How to shrink the T-log file for a lot of old user-databases

Recently I have the case that a customer has a lot of databases not more used but need to be accessible at any time. In this case, we had a lot of T-log with the size when there are used(…)

Sql Konferenz 2023 in Hanau, Germany

Introduction It was a very great pleasure to participate to the Sql Server konferenz 2023 in Hanau, Germany, the 12 and 13 September 2023. I went with my colleague Petar, of the same Microsoft Sql Server team by dbi services,(…)