Have you been made aware of an item in your household that seem so common and familiar but that could have an impact in your safety? Like that little remote you tuck in the sun visor of your car to open your garage. In case you are not aware, someone might be able to hack open your […]
This is a very common question that gets asked on the technical forums, newsgroups, social media, etc. when it comes to synchronous SQL Server Always On Availability Groups (AG): “Why did my AG not automatically failover?” Notice that I mentioned SYNCHRONOUS and not asynchronous. Only when Always On Availability Group replica databases are configured for synchronous commit […]
Whether you need to have a good network connectivity, a tight integration with Active Directory or DNS, a stable Windows Server Failover Cluster, etc. the most common advice that technical experts will give you regarding SQL Server Always On Availability Groups falls into one category: TECHNOLOGY. I’ve just listed a handful of them and there’s […]
Have you ever done something for a long time believing it to be true but actually isn’t? You know, something like going over 10% of the speed limit when you’re driving and thinking that you’re not over speeding? I’m guilty of this myself. But what’s even worse is that there are a lot of information on the […]
Have you ever had a conversation with your boss (or customer, if you’re a consultant) that went something like this: Boss: We need a solution where we can run SSIS packages on a secondary server should failures occur. You: Why do we need it? Boss: Because I want to. You: We can run either failover clustering […]
Taking database backups is still considered to be the most important task that any database administrator does. That’s why it is also important to make sure that database backups not only complete successfully but have also been validated and tested. I’ve written several blog posts about the importance of backups and why having successful backups is not enough. […]
More than a decade ago, I wrote a blog post about what I call the poor man’s SQL Server log shipping. In it, I outlined the process of how log shipping works. This became the basis of the chapter I wrote for the SQL Server MVP Deep Dives Volume 1 book. What’s interesting is that while […]
There have been a lot of blog posts and articles written about the Delayed Durability feature in SQL Server 2014. Here are a couple of them to get you started. Delayed Durability in SQL Server 2014 by SQL Server MVP/Regional Director and SQLSkills CEO Paul Randal (blog | Twitter) Delayed Durability in SQL Server 2014 by […]
In a previous blog post, I mentioned why regularly shrinking your databases is not the right way to reclaim space. I also mentioned at the end of the blog post that the proper way to deal with database space issues is to monitor your disk space utilization and do proper capacity planning. That’s where tools like […]
When I started working with virtual machines on Microsoft Azure last year, one of the first test that I did was to configure SQL Server Availability Groups in a hybrid configuration. The configuration consists of a failover clustered instance on production data center for local high availability and an Availability Group replica on Microsoft Azure […]
