Very much like what you may find with the airline industry, the black box recorder in SQL Server is not just a single method (device) implemented to capture all of the desired data points.
SQL Servers Black Box Recorder – Def Trace
Tag: SQL Internals
How to: File Target use in Extended Events
Using a file target is not difficult from a creation point of view (event session creation). But, some basics are critical or you could end up with fewer follicles.
Upgrading From SQL Server Profiler
How to correlate all of your favorite trace/profiler options into the shiny new XE equivalents.
As luck would have it, there is a means to correlate trace/profiler events to Extended Event events (yeah that sounds weird). With the release of SQL Server 2012, Microsoft introduced a couple of catalog views to help with this correlation effort.
How To: XEvents as Profiler
Despite the controls in place there always seems to be some change that is unknown or even some cowboy that makes changes as s/he sees fit and forgets to notify people or follow process.
Quick and Easy XE for Azure DB
This is a very simple introduction into the creation of an Extended Event session using a template for Azure SQL DB. I demonstrate the use of the GUI to configure the session quickly and then to subsequently script that configuration before creating the session.
Synonyms in SQL Server – Good and Bad
How you use a synonym can be a huge asset or it can be a significant dampener to performance. There are benefits and uses for these nifty little things. Check them out and let us know how you have been able to put synonyms to use to benefit you.
Maintenance Plan Owner – Back to Basics
Have you ever taken over a server that had several maintenance plans on it? Have you ever really checked who the owner of those plans is? Or, maybe you had a failing job relating to one of these maintenance plans and you changed the job owner, but did you really fix the root cause? That could be one of those things that you inherited that could be annoying but you just don’t know it yet.
Capture the Flag – The Trace Flag
Despite the controls in place there always seems to be some change that is unknown or even some cowboy that makes changes as s/he sees fit and forgets to notify people or follow process.
Auditing when Database Files Change
As a Database Administrator, something that should be part of your database audit is monitoring the growth of files. That means tracking when the log file grows and tracking when the data file(s) grow(s).
Ghosts in your Database
Yes Virginia, there are ghosts in your database. More specifically, there are ghosts in your SQL Server database. They are not there to haunt you. They are not there just for this holiday season (speaking of Halloween Month).
How can there be ghosts in the database?
Why would there be ghosts in the database?
Do they happen because somebody issued a KILL statement?