Backup Performance Testing
Reliable database backups are perhaps the single most important aspect of a Database Administrator’s job. The business risk from data-loss that can occur without a reliable database backup are substantial enough to bring many smaller…
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…
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…
Gaps between SQL Server Agent Jobs
For a busy server, with lots of SQL Server Agent Jobs, it can be difficult to determine the optimal time to perform maintenance with the least impact on other operations. The code below inspects the…
Obtaining machine names for failed logins
The SQL Server error log contains invaluable details about failed logins, but only if you enable login auditing. Once enabled, the error log will provide the details of logins that failed including the name of…
