SQL Sam and the Phantom Connection – Part 1 (with clues)

Environment: SQL Server 6.5, SP5a



SQL Sam stood in front of the screaming crowd, with the game-show host
urging him on. "Now Sam", he said, "You have to make a choice. Will it be Door
Number 1, Door Number 2, or Door Number 3? Remember, behind one door is an
incredible prize. Behind another door is a tiger. What’s your choice?"

"What’s behind the door marked ‘Null’ ?" asked Sam.

"Who knows???" shrugged the host with the brillant-white teeth. "What’s your decision?"

The crowd screamed louder. "Pick number 1! … Pick 2! … NOT Null! …"
SQL Sam started to sweat. "I pick…uhhh…Number…uhhh…"

"…Sam…Sam! Excuse me, Sam! Please wake up!" Jimmy Jerry, the junior DBA with two
first names, was gently shaking SQL Sam.

"Oh. Sorry, J.J. Must of dozed off," yawned Sam. "I was up all night helping to
repair the production server. What’s up?"

"Well, Sam, I’m trying to be a good DBA and make sure that our databases aren’t
corrupt by running consistency checks against them. Trouble is, we can’t run
the checks on the production servers- they cause too much blocking for too long.
So, I thought I could restore the databases from the last database dump from the
production server to my test machine, and do the checks there. But I’m having a
problem loading the database dump on the test machine."

"Did you create the database with the exact same data and log device layout, size
and order as the production server?"

"Oh, sure," grinned Jimmy. "I remember you telling us in DBA training how
important that was. So I went to www.swynk.com
and found a great script for reverse-engineering the database devices that
make up a database. That’s how I created the database on the test server. But
the problem I’m having happens when I try to create a
A CLUE!scheduled task to
load the database."

Continue with SQL Sam and the Phantom Connection

Go to the solution now!

Back to SQL Sam Cases


Steve Hontz is President of The Bit
Corner, Inc.
, a Phoenix-based consulting firm
specializing in Windows NT, C++, and SQL Server
development. You can reach him at
steve@bitcorner.com.


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