The PFE Chronicles

Some advice and experience for you from SQL Server PFEs

Variables, Literals, Procs and Stats

This post by US PFE Susan Van Eyck goes through considerations when developing stored procedures...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 07/07/2018

Previewing file content

Windows Explorer is a common tool for anyone working in the Windows environment and sometimes being...

Author: Jonathan Allen msft Date: 07/02/2018

Keeping your important files safe and secure

We all have important files of some sort or another but do we all look after them correctly?...

Author: Jonathan Allen msft Date: 06/26/2018

Somewhere to put that data while your script runs

Ever writing a script and want to quickly place some data in a file while in the middle of your...

Author: Jonathan Allen msft Date: 05/21/2018

How to find out what you need to know

For as long as I can remember I have come across problems where I need to know the range of valid...

Author: Jonathan Allen msft Date: 05/07/2018

Fill Factor and Data Compression

Another post by our excellent US PFE Susan Van Eyck goes though Fill Factor and Data Compression! I...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 04/30/2018

Microseconds Or Milliseconds

While working with a customer on creating some Extended Event to collect performance trace, I was if...

Author: Oren Bouni Date: 04/23/2018

You really need to look out for msdb security

So msdb, we don't really think about it that much right? We know it holds the metadata for our Jobs...

Author: SQL by Edinson Medina Date: 04/16/2018

Troubleshooting Using Ring Buffers

Working at a customer site, and I happened to notice that the Exception ring buffer contained a lot...

Author: Dr. David Thulborn Date: 04/09/2018

Advantages and Annoyances of Filtered Indexes

This weeks great post by our US Senior PFE Susan Van Eyck talks about the wonders of filtered...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 04/02/2018

Instant File Initialization–Do You Know It’s Value?

This weeks post by our US Senior PFE Susan Van Eyck is about the value of using Instant File...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 03/26/2018

Install SQL Server Books Online - Offline

Many of my customers run production environments which have never, and will never, be able to...

Author: Dr. David Thulborn Date: 03/22/2018

SQL Data Discovery & Classification in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 17.5 [Behind the Scenes]

In my previous post on the new Classify Data function in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 17.5 -...

Author: Mark Pryce-Maher (MSFT) Date: 03/19/2018

SQL Data Discovery & Classification in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 17.5

In the latest version of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 17.5, the new SQL Data Discovery &...

Author: Mark Pryce-Maher (MSFT) Date: 03/13/2018

Assess an Enterprise With Data Migration Assistant–Part 4: Report on an Assessment

In my previous post I took you through how to consume the assessment data into the DMAWarehouse. In...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 03/08/2018

Assess an Enterprise With Data Migration Assistant–Part 3: Loading an Assessment

In my previous post I took you through how to run a scaled assessment using the dmaDataCollector...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 03/08/2018

Assess an Enterprise With Data Migration Assistant–Part 2: Running an Assessment

In my previous post I took you through the prerequisites for successfully running a scaled...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 03/08/2018

Assess an Enterprise With Data Migration Assistant–Part 1: Prerequisites

In my previous posts How to Consolidate JSON Assessment Reports and Report on Your Consolidadted...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 03/08/2018

Presenting with SSMS

Whilst presenting at a Microsoft Operations Day in Reading last Tuesday, I was giving a demo on some...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 02/25/2018

SELECT *, Indexes, Data Access, and the Optimizer!

Another great “Database Byte” by our US PFE guest writer Susan Van Eyck!  This time on the pitfalls...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 02/15/2018

VSCode custom snippets

Blog – VSCode – Custom Snippets Hopefully you are aware of the new lightweight script editor VSCode....

Author: Jonathan Allen msft Date: 01/30/2018

Implicit Conversions – Ouch!

Today we have a guest post from one of our excellent Premier Field Engineers from the United States...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 01/29/2018

New in SSMS 17.4 - Vulnerability Assessment

[Guest post by Oren Buoni EMEA SQL Server PFE) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) version 17.4...

Author: Jonathan Allen msft Date: 12/29/2017

SQL Server 2017 GA Announced!

Short But Sweet It's finally been announced! Scott Guthrie and Rohan Kumar announce at Ignite SQL...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 09/26/2017

Recover the SSISDB to a New Machine Without a Database Backup

It's Not Pretty! Imagine your SQL Server instance, which contains your very important SSISDB fails....

Author: Chris Lound Date: 08/23/2017

SQL Performance Counters are Missing

There was one time when I was delivering a Service using a tool that gathers performance data...

Author: SQL by Edinson Medina Date: 08/03/2017

SQL Azure DW – What is it? How it works?

Azure DW what is it? Is it the same as SQL Azure but bigger? No. It is kind of…different. It is a...

Author: Liliam Cristiman Date: 07/25/2017

SQL Azure troubleshooting, some ideas and scenarios.

While I was working in a customer request about SQL Azure troubleshooting, I noticed sometimes when...

Author: Liliam Cristiman Date: 04/19/2017

SQL Server 2016 new features to deal with the new CE

It is no news that SQL Server 2014 changed the Cardinality Estimator (CE). Ok. Even if it is not...

Author: Liliam Cristiman Date: 03/22/2017

Report on your consolidated Data Migration Assistant Assessments With PowerBI

In a previous post How to consolidate Assessment Reports we looked at a method to consolidate the...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 03/18/2017

Oh it's that time again ! - SQLBits!

It's almost that time again!  Christmas day for data professionals! SQLBits !!! Hopefully a lot of...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 03/16/2017

Database Startup Times

Have you have ever wondered what your database is doing as it starts and works through the various...

Author: Dr. David Thulborn Date: 03/15/2017

xp_cmdshell - Naming, Shaming and Taming

I think most people dealing with SQL Server understand that xp_cmdshell can be a bit of a security...

Author: Dr. David Thulborn Date: 03/08/2017

How to Consolidate Data Migration Assistant JSON Assessment Reports

Starting from Data Migration Assistant (DMA) v 2.1, DMA provides command-line support for running...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 03/03/2017

Query Store: How it works? How to use the new Query Store Catalog Views?

Part 2 /Fix 2017.03.28: Not Query Store DMVs but Catalog Views. Thanks Kalen Delaney for point it/...

Author: Liliam Cristiman Date: 03/02/2017

Deconstructing Extended Event XML

In a recent engagement, I had need of an Extended Event to gather range scans on my target instance....

Author: Dr. David Thulborn Date: 02/28/2017

SQL Server 2016 HA Series Part 2 – SSIS and Availability Groups

This series is intended to provide a short focused write up on some of the key new SQL Server 2016...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 02/15/2017

The mysterious case of why your procedure has two query plans & the bitwise AND

Have you ever been looking at your plan cache and found that you have more than one plan for any...

Author: Jonathan Allen msft Date: 02/06/2017

Query Store: How it works? How to use it?

Part 1 “The SQL Server Query Store feature provides you with insight on query plan choice and...

Author: Liliam Cristiman Date: 01/31/2017

Query Data Store Size Cleanup Retention

SQL Server's Query Store introduced in SQL Server azure and SQL Server 2016 provides you with...

Author: Liliam Cristiman Date: 11/22/2016

Set your PowerShell session to automatically log into Azure

[Edit 18 July 2017] - A recent update in the PowerShell command line tools for Azure has broken my...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 11/16/2016

SQL Server 2016 HA Series Part 1 – 3 Auto Failover Targets

This series is intended to provide a short focused write up on some of the key new SQL Server 2016...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 11/07/2016

Query Store - Settings and Limits

SQL Server 2016 and SQL Azure represent the biggest leap forward in Microsoft data platform history...

Author: Liliam Cristiman Date: 10/25/2016

How To: Use the Azure Key Vault to Manage the Key for a TDE enabled Database

There are many posts available showing the steps to create an Azure Key Vault and to use it for TDE,...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 07/13/2016

Using ‘R’ Services within SQL Server 2016

Using 'R' Services Within SQL Server 2016 ‘R’ Services in SQL Server 2016 is a new technology within...

Author: Dr. David Thulborn Date: 06/28/2016

Log Ship SSISDB in SQL Server 2012

Recently I’ve been helping out on an SSIS consolidation project and was asked to help understand how...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 05/24/2016

Incremental Statistics and Trace Flag 2371 in SQL 2014

Over the last few days I've been asked a few times if trace flag 2371 works in SQL2014 with...

Author: Chris Lound Date: 04/12/2016

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