Gregory Larsen

As machines get more powerful and less expensive people are using a single machine to host more than a single SQL Server database. So, over time, a SQL Server machine might support more and more databases. But eventually you will need to replace your hardware, your database server will fail due to a hardware problem, […]

Employers these days are saying there is a lack of good candidates for available job openings. How employers rate employees is different from company to company, but one thing for sure is they are looking at the degrees and certificates a potential candidate holds. One way to demonstrate that you know how to manage SQL […]

Last month in my article (Building Custom Reporting Services Reports for SQL Server Management Studio ), I discussed that with SQL Server 2005 SP2 Microsoft implemented a new feature called “Custom Reports”. Custom Reports are Reporting Services report definition files that can be rendered within SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). With Custom Reports, you can […]

When Microsoft released Service Pack 2 (SP2) for SQL Server 2005, they added a new feature called Custom Reports. This new feature allows you to build Reporting Services reports that can be rendered within SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). There is no requirement to install Reporting Services to use the Custom Reports feature of SP2, […]

When you think of SQL Server performance components, you think of the usage of CPU, memory, and the I/O it takes to process a query. However, there is another component you should consider. That component is disk space usage. In the old days disk space was expensive, so much so people spent great effort to […]

Windows Authentication, SQL Server Authentication, Windows Groups, Database Roles, Schema, and Application Roles are all aspects used to manage SQL Server Security. So how do you use one or more of these items to develop your SQL Server security architecture for an instance of SQL Server? Is there a correct way or a wrong way […]

SQL Server Profiler is a valuable tool for monitoring activity against your SQL Server environment. With this tool, you can monitor numerous events depending on what kind of performance problem you are trying to track down. This tool is normally used in real time, where the events being monitored are displayed on your computer monitor. […]

Are you considering becoming a Microsoft Certified DBA? Where do you start? How do you prepare for getting certified? There are lots of different methods to prepare for the exams. You can read some books, obtain hands on experience, or go to an instructor led class. In addition to these methods, you should also get […]

If you are like most, you probably have looked into using Windows Authentication as a method to authenticate users to SQL Server 2005. Windows Authentication is the preferred and more secure method of connecting to SQL Server. If your goal is to use Windows authentication for everything then under some situations it does present some […]

Sometimes an application may need data stored in another database on a different instance of SQL Server. That different instance might be on the same physical machine or might be on another machine altogether. So what do you do in this situation? Your options depend on your data requirements, like how up to date does […]

Are you using the standard port number 1433 for communicating with SQL Server 2005? Have you considered setting up SQL Server to listen on a different port number than 1433? Well I did. In this article, I will discuss how I did it and the issues I came across when I setup up SQL Server […]

I was attending a SQL Server event a few weeks back when a number of DBA types were talking about new features in SQL Server 2005. One of the topics that came up was how might you monitor execution of stored procedures. One DBA said it would be nice if he had a method to […]