Database Management & Programming News, Articles & Tutorials for Database Administrators

GDPR for the DBA 06/18/2018

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect worldwide on May 25, 2018. In response, companies throughout the world increased their data security awareness, appointed data protection officers and updated their privacy policies. IT support staff responded with updated data dictionaries, flagging of personal data, encryption at various points (local and cloud storage, network traffic, etc.) and heightened security procedures. However, more work is needed. In this article we focus on what the DBA must do in the near term in order to anticipate and prevent performance and capacity issues.

Creating an Oracle Patching Strategy 06/14/2018

Patching an Oracle installation can be interesting, especially if the patch needs to be backed out.  Read on to see how to create a process that preserves the original home.

Top Reporting Tools for MySQL in 2018 06/11/2018

Rob Gravelle presents some of the Top Reporting Tools for MySQL for your viewing pleasure.

Azure SQL Database and GDPR Compliance 06/07/2018

In recent years, technology landscape has undergone dramatic changes, driven primarily by cloud computing and a continuously increasing level of attention dedicated to security, privacy, and compliance. One of the more significant initiatives that attempts to address these challenges is General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR. In this article, we will explore how Azure SQL Database could help with addressing the GDPR requirements.

Databases with MAXSIZE Set 06/04/2018

When a database grows to the MAXSIZE the database will not grow anymore and if someone tries to add more rows they will get an error saying the database is full. Greg Larsen shows you how to find all database files that have their max_size set.

Indexes That Have Not Been Used but Are Being Updated 06/04/2018

We all know indexes are important for improving your query performance, but to store and maintain indexes SQL Server requires disk space and compute resources. If you have indexes that are not being used, they are costing you valuable resources and causing your update statements to run longer. Those updates run longer because they have to maintain those unused indexes. If your application is not using an index, then there is no value in having that index. Read on to learn more.

Moving from Oracle Solaris to x86 05/29/2018

Since Solaris is soon to be unsupported the x86 platform may be a desirable choice.  Read on to see how to make the transition easier.

Adaptive Query Processing in SQL Server 05/21/2018

Adaptive query processing is the latest query processing feature introduced in the SQL Server database engine, available in SQL Server (starting with SQL Server 2017 (14.x)) and Azure SQL Database. Read on to learn more.

Oracle's Conventional Export (exp) May Cause Problems 05/14/2018

There may be some still using conventional export (exp); with Oracle 12 that may not be a good idea.  Read on to see why.

5 More Features of IBM Db2 12 for z/OS 05/10/2018

IBM's Db2 Version 12 for z/OS has many new features that focus on performance and security measures, particularly for mobile and cloud applications. Advances in cryptographic hardware and query accelerator technologies facilitate rapid development of customer-facing applications and the embedding of big data queries in operational systems.

Tables Without Clustered Indexes 05/03/2018

Do all of your tables contain clustered indexes? Some say every table should have a clustered index. Greg Larsen shares a simple script to identify those tables in your database that don’t have a clustered index.

Why Are You Dropping and Recreating Your Indexes? 05/03/2018

Why are you dropping and recreating your indexes, when you could just disable and then rebuild them? By disabling an index, you have basically turned off the index, but have allowed SQL Server to retain the index definition in the database metadata. If you want the index back all you need to do is rebuild the index.

How to Programmatically Identify When Your SQL Server Was Last Started 04/02/2018

Greg Larsen shows you a quick trick to programmatically script a way to identify when SQL Server was last started.

How to Show the Execution Plan of a Running Query 04/02/2018

By looking at a query execution plan, you can determine which steps are used to resolve the query. But what if you just want to find out what the query plans are for only the queries that are currently running?

How to Send a TDE Encrypted Backup to Someone Outside Your Organization 03/01/2018

Once you enable your database to be encrypted with Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), the physical database files, and the database backups are encrypted.  If your database and database backup are encrypted, then how can you send the encrypted backup to a person outside your organization?

What is the State of My Transparent Data Encrypted Database? 03/01/2018

When using Transparent Data Encryption, you might wonder “What is the state of my transparent data encrypted database?” Read on to learn the many different states that a transparent data encrypted database might go through.

How to Enable Transparent Data Encryption 02/01/2018

By default, SQL Server does not encrypt data in a SQL Server database in an encrypted format. When SQL Server 2008 was introduced, Microsoft implemented Transparent Data Encryption (TDE). When TDE is enabled on a database SQL Server will encrypt the database as data is written to the disk. Read on to learn more...

How to Move a TDE Encryption Key to Another SQL Server Instance 02/01/2018

If you have a database backup of a Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) enabled database, the database backup will contain encrypted data. Because the database backup contains encrypted data you can’t just restore it to any instance. You can only restore the database backup to an instance that contains the same certificate used to originally encrypt the database.

Has Your Database Been Backed up in the Last 24 Hours? 01/02/2018

As a DBA your #1 responsibility is to make sure that each of your SQL Server databases are backed up. This tip provides a couple of TSQL scripts that will identify the last backup of each database.

How to Change the Default Backup Directory 01/02/2018

When you install a SQL Server instance you have the opportunity to identify the default location for your instance database backups. Overtime you might decide you want to change the default location for database backups. This tip shows you two different ways to change the default location for your database backups.