BT and Oracle cloud link up

BT are marketing a “cloud of clouds” idea. They already offer access to Office 365 , Amazon Web Services, and a bunch of other Services including Cisco and Salesfore. They announced a deal with Oracle Cloud. With Oracle Cloud , a subscriber can access Oracle technology. From a DBA perspective there are some aspects to note: There are a number of major vendors in the Cloud – Microsoft, IBM, Amazon. From a pricing and licensing perspective , how do they compare? Organisations are reviewing database platforms – based on licensing costs. Management of database servers in the cloud? Cloud –... Read more →

New Database request checklist

You’ve just spent 2 weeks optimising a database for a new application, ensuring all the items on SQL Server Install Checklist are met. There’s a plan in place to scale for growth , a maintenance plan and an agreement to commit a health check once a month. Everything is looking good. Then the owner requests if they add a new database , for a new third party application. As it’s there server – and are paying for it – they want to make it as cost effective as possible. As a DBA you have a responsibility to complete some capacity... Read more →

How to use GO command for multiple execution of sql statements

A useful feature of the GO command is the possibility of using the count Argument. For example, if I issue this sql staement through SSMS , it will run the once: select @@servername GO but if you execute the following sql statement , it will run three times select @@servername GO 3 This is a fairly simple example. It is possible to extend this idea into a very simplistic performance testing or functionality testing method. I stress the word simple. In a more comprehensive test, you might use a product such as JMeter where you can simulate some workload. The... Read more →

Database has more than 1000 virtual log files which is excessive – informational message 9017

Question: I get the 9017 Informational Message when I start the SQL Server Instance Database Mydatabase has more than 1000 virtual log files which is excessive. Too many virtual log files can cause long startup and backup times. Consider shrinking the log and using a different growth increment to reduce the number of virtual log files. What does it mean and what steps can I take to fix? Answer:The 9017 message appears because a threshold is met on the number of virtual log files for a database. Within a SQL Server Transaction Log file exist virtual log files (VLF) .... Read more →

How to find CurrentClockSpeed and MaxClockSpeed using Powershell Get-WmiObject win32_processor

Question: How can I find CurrentClockSpeed and MaxClockSpeed using Powershell? I’d like to audit our servers and identify inefficiencies around processor consumption. The VM administrator on site claims the servers are being under utilised therefore there is no justification to request another VM server. The figures they’ve presented seem inaccurate . They are based on smoothing out peaks over a period of time – which is not an accurate methodology in understanding how CPU is utilised by SQLServer Answer: This is one of those questions which I get from DBAs . In an age of cost – cutting , justifying... Read more →