Top 10 Mistakes When Building and Maintaining a Database

Building and maintain a SQL Server database environment takes a lot of work. There are many things to consider when you are designing, supporting and troubleshooting your environment. This article identifies a top ten list of mistakes, or things that sometimes are overlooked when supporting a database environment.


http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/3906986/Top-10-Mistakes-When-Building-and-Maintaining-a-Database.htm

High Performance Storage Systems for SQL Server

Rod Colledge turns his pessimistic mindset to storage systems, and describes the best way to configure the storage systems of SQL Servers for both performance and reliability. Even Rod gets a glint in his eye when he then goes on to describe the dazzling speed of solid-state storage, though he is quick to identify the risks.


http://www.simple-talk.com/sql/performance/high-performance-storage-systems-for-sql-server/

The 10 Things to Do First for Windows 7

AT A GLANCE:

• Getting to know Windows 7
• Dealing with the latest volume-activation requirements
• Developing a roadmap
• Handling new distributed-security features
• Virtualizing desktops and infrastructures
• Removing users' local-admin rights

When you run your thumb down the list of new features and improvements in Windows 7 (see the feature comparison chart at tinyurl.com/win7featuregrid), you're bound to wonder how you're going to get your arms around all that new technology so that you can deliver it to your users without too much disruption.

Following are 10 steps that can help you accomplish that goal.

A Beginner’s Guide to Virtualizing Exchange Server, Part 2

It isn't easy to measure the consumption of physical resources by servers in virtual machines, since each partition has its' own virtualised view of system resources. Not only that, but there is a subtle difference between virtual processors and physical processors. Brien Posey explains the special performance counters that can be used to get an accurate assessment, and goes on to describe how to test your physical servers to see if they are good candidates for virtualization.

If you read my first article in this series, then you got something of a crash course in Hyper-V’s architecture. Of everything that I covered in that article though, there are two main points that you need to keep in mind:

1. When it comes to virtualizing Exchange Server, it is critical that you monitor resource consumption so that you can ensure that there are sufficient hardware resources available to effectively service Exchange and any other virtual machines that may be running on the server.
2. Each of the various resource monitoring mechanisms that I showed you tells a completely different story regarding how much of the server’s physical resources are actually being consumed.

In other words, it is important to find out how much of the server’s resources are being consumed, but you are not going to be able to do so in the usual way.

Auto generate change scripts in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) for tables

As a part of my best practices, I always save the T-SQL scripts used for creation and modification of objects in SQL Server. When creating and modifying tables using SQL Server Management Studio designer it is easy to right click in the designer and select "Generate Change Script...", but is there a way to automatically script the creation and/or modification of tables made through of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) designer?  This tip shows you an option that exists within SSMS to automatically generate these scripts for all table changes when using the table designer.

EventTracker PULSE

EventTracker PULSE is a smart search engine for log data. Available as a free software download, it automates the real-time collection and long term archival of all log data from Windows (servers and workstations), Unix/Linux, Cisco devices, applications and any syslog source. A Google-like interface provides searching across hundreds of gigiabytes of data, allowing users to pinpoint critical data in a matter of seconds. Hundreds of preconfigured knowledge categories help users find common events such as Cisco authentication failures or Windows logon failures. In addition, an optional Windows agent provides monitoring of CPU usage, network connections, disk space utilization, capacity utilization, user activity etc.

The benefits of Log Search limitless for system administration and security. For instance, users can quickly identify root cause of service degradations or IT failures for remediation, or in the event of an internal breach, pinpoint who did what and when and plug security holes.

EventTracker PULSE installs on any Windows server or workstation. Key features include:

• No limit on collection and archival of log data
  
• Real-time collection from Windows (servers and workstations), Unix/Linux, Cisco devices, applications and any syslog source
  
• Compressed, secure (SHA1) storage of data
  
• Easy to use Google-like interface with options for free-form searching using keywords, exact phrases, operators, wildcard characters or a combination of all for complex queries
  
• Endless refine to extract precise matches from large volumes
  
• Hundreds of preconfigured knowledge categories
  
• One-click access to the Prism KnowledgeBase for helpful descriptions on over 20,000 events
  
• Agent-optional architecture; centralized agent configuration

More details and download availabile here: http://pulse.prismmicrosys.com/

Dealing with Windows 64bit "I want SIGNED drivers!"

Solving 64-Bit Windows' "I Only Want Signed Drivers!" Tantrums

I love 64-bit Windows.  I love the ability to stick 8 gigs of RAM on a laptop, allowing me to run several virtual servers, each of which I can equip with 1.5 GB of RAM.  (Life's too short to wait for Server 2008 to get things done in 512 MB of RAM, y'know?)  I love how much snappier Adobe Lightroom is when it's no longer shackled to the 2 GB limits that 32-bit Windows requires.  And I especially love that the main problem with 64-bit Windows -- the lack of 64-bit drivers -- is largely a thing of the past, save for those cases where vendors use the new architecture as a way to force you to upgrade (and yes, I am talking to you, HP printer division and Cisco VPN folks).

Once in a while, though, I run up against the the thing that I most don't like about 64-bit Windows:  the iron rule of driver signing.  Ever since XP and 2003, the 64-bit versions of Windows have refused to load kernel executables or device drivers unless those executables and drivers are digitally signed.  Load a driver that's not signed, and 64-bit Windows pops up some scary-looking message essentially saying, "take a walk, buddy, and take your unsigned driver with you... I mean you don't really know where this thing's been, do you?"  You can get around it by pressing F8 every time you boot and disabling driver signing, but that's a pain.  There was once, briefly, a setting in bcdedit that would let you tell Windows to always skip driver signing, but Vista SP1 put an end to that -- and besides, I don't want Windows to ignore checking the signatures on all drivers, I just want it to allow me to run the occasional unsigned driver.

Look, I understand the whole thought process behind this totalitarian approach, which I understand runs something like this:

• Unsigned drivers cause the vast majority of Windows bluescreens.
  
• Unknowing users don't know that, and so blame Microsoft for blue screens
  
• This really irritates people at Microsoft and in particular Dave Cutler, Windows' Architectus Maximus
  
• Dave wants to make it easy to finger the culprit of any given blue screen
  
• Signing a driver carries with it something of a statement of personal confidence in that driver (and here, I feel, is where the whole thing falls down a bit:  signing a driver says you wrote it, not that it lacks bugs), so...
  
• 64-bit Windows requires that all drivers and kernel executables be signed.
  

It all just seems a bit heavy-handed for my taste -- sort of like, oh, say, scaring a large room full of people into thinking that you've just released a bunch of malaria-infected mosquitoes into the air to make a point about poverty.  Anyway, this month I wanted to offer a workaround for those who run 64-bit systems and really need to run an unsigned driver now and then.  The workaround?  Create your own driver signing certificate and sign the driver or application yourself!  Here are the steps.

Introduction to SQL Server 2008 Report Builder 2.0

Problem
I have heard that there is a new version of Report Builder in SQL Server 2008.  Can you provide some details and examples?  What is new with Report Builder 2.0?  How does the new interface look?  What is the learning curve with this tool?

Solution

SQL Server 2008 includes a brand new version of the Report Builder which was first introduced in SQL Server 2005.  The key new features in Report Builder 2.0 are:

• A completely new user interface that conforms to the Office 2007 look and feel
• A local client install rather than a click-once application that you download and install from Report manager
• Supports running reports locally or on the server
• A Report Model is not required; you can create your own queries using a query designer, import queries from existing reports, or manually type in your queries
• A Tablix report type which is a combination of the matrix and table reports

In this tip we will review installing Report Builder 2.0, the new user interface, developing a sample report, and deploying the report to a SQL Server 2008 report server.  I'll cover the new Tablix report in a future tip.

CoreConfigurator - use a graphic interface to configure Windows Server 2008 Core edition!

Smart-X has published a new version, 1.2.0.2 of their tool, CoreConfigurator - use a graphic interface to configure Windows Server 2008 Core edition!

CoreConfigurator is free for personal use and free for non commercial use.

Hyper-V Remote Management Configuration Utility

HVRemote, maintained by John Howard, Senior Program Manager in the Hyper-V Team at Microsoft, is a handy tool that reduces the manual configuration steps needed for Hyper-V Remote Management down to one or two commands.

HVRemote project site is at this address: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/HVRemote

and author's blog can be found here.

Hyper-V Server 2008 Local Management scripts / UI

A very nice addition to the configuration script integrated in Hyper-V Server, HVS2008 UI is a CodePlex developed script that helps you manage a Hyper-V Server host.

http://www.codeplex.com/HVS2008UI

Is developed by Ravikanth Chaganti's and his blog can be found here.

Spring Clean Your Database Schema

The utility described in this article will allow you to quickly identify which columns have mismatched datatypes across tables in a database, and should prove valuable in the everyday work of the SQL Server DBA/developer.

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Admin/65138/

Log Management, the easy way

Today i have found an interesting Log Management software, called Splunk. Seems very powerful, and they even have a free version.

Splunk website - http://www.splunk.com/

Splunk documentation - http://www.splunk.com/base/Documentation

What Splunk can do for you:

Index
With a variety of flexible input methods you can index logs, configurations, traps and alerts, messages, scripts, and code and performance data from all your applications, servers and network devices. Monitor file systems for scripts and configuration changes, capture archive files, find and tail live application logs, connect to network ports to receive syslog, SNMP and other network-based instrumentation. And this is just where it starts.

Search
Fast, free form search on anything, not just a few predetermined fields. Boolean, nested, quoted string and wildcard searches. No knowledge of specific data formats required. Combine time and term searches. Find errors across every tier of your infrastructure and configuration changes in the seconds before a system failure occurred. Fields are identified from your results as you search -- providing much more flexibility than a rigid set of field mapping rules imposed ahead of time.

Alert
Any search can be run on a schedule and trigger notifications or actions based on the search results. And because it works across different components and technologies, Splunk is the most flexible monitoring tool in your arsenal. Notifications can be sent via email, RSS or SNMP to other management consoles. Actions trigger scripts performing user described activities like restarting an application, server or network device.

Report
Splunk marries powerful reporting capabilities with the speed, flexibility and scale of IT Search. Search results can be easily summarized as reports with interactive charts, graphs and tables. The simplicity of analyzing massive amounts of data will amaze you (and your boss). And remember, because fields are identified as you search you can specify new fields without re-indexing your data.

Share
Everyone knows IT data is generally poorly documented by vendors, developers and operations staff. With Splunk everyone can add their own knowledge as they go. As you’re saving searches, identifying different types of fields, events and transactions you make the whole system smarter for everyone else. And that knowledge doesn’t walk out the door when someone leaves.

Scale
Scale your installation from a single application and just a few data sources to your whole datacenter and thousands of sources. You’ll find a wide range of options to access data, store it, search it and route it to other systems.

Secure
Of course you'll need to keep your IT data secure. Especially as you realize what a valuable information asset you have. Splunk gives you secure data handling, fine grain access controls, auditability, assurance of data integrity and integration with existing authentication systems.

When i will be done with the installation and configuration with my new servers i will give it a try, and share my experience with it.