SQL Server Agent Job Activity
SQL Server Agent provides a graphical user interface to inspect the status of agent jobs. The Job Activity Monitor looks like: However, if you want to programmatically obtain the detail about running jobs, including details…
Internet access to your SQL Server?
Occasionally I see questions on dba.stackexchange.com where it appears the SQL Server is exposed directly to the Internet, allowing remote connections. This is very bad. In this post, I provide some reasons why. First, it…
Vulnerability Assessment recommends disabling Remote Admin Connections
SSMS 17 has the handy ability to run quick Vulnerability Assessments against your database. One of the Vulnerability Assessment checks looks to see if the Dedicated Administrator Connection, otherwise known as the “DAC”, is enabled…
Compare Plans with SSMS 2016+
Microsoft has been making great strides with their database management platform lately. One really great improvement in their management tool, SQL Server Management Studio, is the “Compare Plans” feature. This allows visually comparing plans to…
File Growth Analysis via Default Trace
SQL Server continuously tracks certain critical events in the “default trace”. Among those events are the file growth events triggered when SQL Server automatically grows a database data or log file, or when a user…
CROSS APPLY as an alternative to UNPIVOT
This morning, I was listening to the inimitable SQL Server Radio podcast, with Matan Yungman and Guy Glantser. They mentioned how Itzik Ben-Gan had documented a great way to turn CROSS APPLY into an extensible…