Announcing the General Availability of IDERA SQL Compliance Manager 7.0

Inconsistent backup plans While it is hard enough to manage SQL Server, you find that having inconsistent backup plans from server to server will make your life even harder. Instead, try to classify your databases into a few groups and then apply the same backup plan...

Writing directly to tape A lot of third–party backup tools have agents that allow you to write directly to tape. This was great in the old days when disk space was expensive and limited. But this should not be the case anymore. You can write to disk first and then...

Not understanding options Another big problem is people not being aware of the different options that are available using T-SQL commands and using SQL Server Management Studio. You should take the time to read SQL Server Books Online, so you understand all the options...

Testing Not using restore verify option The last thing you want is to discover that your backup is not good when trying to restore it. A restore verify does at least give you some peace of mind that SQL Server could read the contents of the backup without issue,...

Writing and tuning SQL code are two different things. There are many ways to write code so that it does the intended function. But there are also ways to make code more efficient. In most cases, we follow development techniques in repetition based on what the database...

There are several things that could cause performance issues for a query. You can identify these by breaking down the processing time for a query into various wait states, such as locks, input/output, and the central processing unit. This can give you an idea of what...

There are many things that can cause slowdowns in SQL Server, such as resources like disk, memory, and network. But the one place where database administrators and developers have the most control and can make the biggest impact is tuning queries. SQL Diagnostic...

Deadlocking is a common problem that can occur in an SQL Server database. This is like blocking. But instead of being blocked forever, SQL Server chooses one session as the deadlock victim and rolls it back so the other process can continue. SQL Diagnostic Manager...

Blocking is a normal activity that occurs in SQL Server and it does that to control data integrity and make sure only one resource can change a set of data at one time. The problem with blocking is if SQL Server blocked a session for a long period, this can cause...

There are many advantages of using SQL Diagnostic Manager over building your own tools and one of these is the enterprise management view of all your SQL Servers in one place. We can see the entire environment fast and also see issues that need attention. With...

As a database administrator, monitoring database systems for performance, corruption, and data issues is an ongoing task. It is also an overwhelming task depending on how large the database environment is and the number of resources there are to manage the...

Development is a big undertaking and most of the time it focuses on making sure all the features are in place and working. Once this is done, tuning for performance often occurs. But in order to make adjustments, developers need data to understand where the issue is...

One can improve how secure databases are. However, that often degrades how well the database performs. The cost increases to improve database security while maintaining database performance. The trade-off comprises three axes: performance, security, and cost....

Stricter governmental and industry regulation coupled with the need for improving how secure the sensitive corporate data is has driven up the need to track who is accessing data in corporate databases. Organizations must be ever-vigilant to monitor data usage and...

It is easy and all too common to see the auditing team as adversaries. All the information they want takes time to gather. All the rules and procedures they want added just slow things down. And far too often, it feels like we are trying to pass the test rather than...

In the current IT landscape, we face meeting an ever-increasing number of laws, regulations, and industry standards. The good news is that most of these different requirements overlap with each other and we can configure our SQL Servers in accordance. Watch the...

Not protecting physical backups You should think about the value of the data or the consequences of it getting into the wrong hands since a full database backup contains all data in your database. You will want to make sure you always protect this data when it is live...

To understand how malicious actors can infiltrate SQL Server is the key to understanding how to prevent intrusions. The consequences for inadequate permissions are tremendous. Organizations could incur data breaches, fines, loss of customers, a decrease in customer...